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Vovume XVI 


CONTENTS 


‘1. Human Instincts and Social Life... 0.0... ccececcceeeeee+s LUAWRENCE W. Core 
2. The Motivation of Aliruism......0006.0e0ccere ces vee eer esees++/GLEN WAKEBAM 
3. The Tax System of Colorado........ 2.1.40 veeerevenenersses es +As GAYLE WALDROP 


4, Literary Sources of Italian Opera. eee eee cee eeeeedeeeceeess+++.MiptaM RIEDER 


» 







Bouter, Cotorapo, June, 1928 sete x me 


Price, $1.00 











ANNOUN CEMENT 


. These STUDIES are in. charge of a committee appoir ec 
President of the University.. The committee chairman, P 
Francis Ramaley, acts as editor. Numbers of the STUDIES 
from time to time as suitable contributions are recieved f 
bers of the Faculty, preference being given to articles ole 


"placed « on. ‘the aches list should make request to ‘the ‘ ‘Ed. 
ee of Colorado gee ‘Boulder, Colorado” to: Gui 





VoLuME XVI NUMBER 3 


THE 


UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO 
STUDIES 


BOULDER, COLORADO, JUNE, 1928 





CONTENTS 


Human Instincts and Social Life 


LAWRENCE W. Cote, Ph.D. 
Professor of Psychology 


The Motivation of Altruism 


GLEN WAKEHAM, Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor of Chemistry 


The Tax System of Colorado 


A. GAyvLE WatLprop, M.A. 
Assistant Professor of Journalism 


Literary Sources of Italian Opera 


Miriam RiepeEr, M.A. 
Instructor in Romance Languages 


Page | 
175 


197, 


233 


ZN 


ah | 





HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 


By LAWRENCE W. CoLE 


When a theory, almost purely negative in character, is proposed 
to the effect that there are no human instincts, no consciousness or 
mind or subconsciousness for the psychologist to consider, but only 
behavior reflex or conditioned; when the behaviorist isin fact of the 
opinion that there are no opinions, his conception will provoke 
attention by its very audacity. In fact, he reminds us slightly of the 
school boy who offers to whip another with one hand tied behind his 
back. He offers to write psychology, or a substitute for it, under the 
handicap of ignoring what other writers felt it their plain duty to con- 
sider and describe. 

Unfortunately, however, theories must exhibit, not necessarily 
audacity, but evidence of truth. To weigh that matter the reader may 
well begin by asking the behaviorist if his theory is entirely new. 
If so, it deserves more attention. It will be found, however, to be 
almost identical with the ‘‘conscious automaton theory” so ably 
debated in the 80’s by Huxley, Clifford, James, and others and 
finally rejected on the ground that, instead of explaining, it ignored 
most of the facts of human experience. 

Another somewhat common sense test may emerge from the 
question: Is the theory bounded by state lines? More than once in 
the recent history of psychology a theory has been well established 
in America by vigorous authority, only to find few or no adherents 
in France or England. Eventually such theory proved quite false 
and belief in it proved to be due to vigorous partisanship. 

This seems to be the condition of the theory of behaviorism to- 
day. It has followers in America, due to the contagion of persuasion, 
but where this contagion is lacking it has seemed to awaken little 
interest. We may ask, therefore: Is human behavior as well described 
on the hypothesis that it is all due to ‘“‘conditioning,” as on the 
theory that there are internal, hereditary drives and urges, namely, 
instincts, which condition even the conditioning? The latter view 
seems to yield the more natural and truthful account of human 
behavior and experience. Moreover, by a subtle, introspective 
comparison, even the non-psychological reader recognizes whether 
a piece of descriptive writing is ‘‘true to nature,” or whether it is a 
quite artificial invention made to fit a theory. 


175 


176 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


Because of this fact, I venture to hope that two classes of readers 
may be interested in the following account by a French writer of 
“Human Instincts and Social Life.’””? One class will find interest in 
deciding whether it appears to be a true account of human social 
experience. Another class will wish, not only to make this decision, 
but also to compare the account with behavioristic writings on social 
psychology of recent date. 

I am sure that every reader will find Duprat’s chapter of great 
value unless it has lost all its worth in translation. Two competent 
but kindly critics assure me that this is not quite the case. The 
little book by Duprat, ‘‘Psychologie Sociale,”’ seems to me rather 
the soundest discussion of social psychology that I have found. The 
second chapter, in which he describes instinctive social behavior, 
serves as foundation for the rest of the book. For that reason it has 
been selected for translation. 


Human INSTINCTS AND SocIAL LiFE* 
Hereditary Impulses as the Basis of Psycho-Sociological Evolution. 


The living being only continues and is forced to perpetuate a 
determinate existence which has been transmitted by an ancestral 
line. He depends for his anatomical structure and his physiological 
traits on a specific type completed by ancestral acquisitions in har- 
mony with the fundamental structure. While individual variations 
occur they are brought back to the type structure in the next genera- 
tion, much as gravity determines the swings of a pendulum. The 
individual is essentially only a specimen, whose biological purpose 
is the preservation of a type. The individual life is then only an 
event, contingent and of trivial import in a prodigious species of its 
germs. Yet, the plasticity of the nervous substance and its predomi- 
nance over muscular tissues permit the animal to make new acquisi- 
tions. Thus it is capable of participating in the progressive evolution 
of the type. This is the reason that individuality has its relative 
importance in the species, where a faculty of intelligent adaptation 
is clearly manifest. 

This aptitude for intelligent adaptation in the human species 
has caused us too often to reject from the plan hereditary preadapta- 


* Translated and abridged from G.-L. Duprat, Psychologie Sociale (Octave Doin, Paris), by Lawrence 
W. Cole, University of Colorado, with kind permission of the publisher. 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 177 


tion, without which man could not exist, in spite of his pretensions 
to a supernatural origin and a supernatural destiny. Now preadap- 
tation, animal or human, interests social life in the highest degree 
for such preadaptation endsin hereditary impulses, in modesof activity 
almost alike in all individuals. They make real, at the very basis 
of collective existence, the union, the cohesion of homogeneous 
individuals. Hereditary impulses are the essential thing in “instinct.” 

At the base of social life and of individual life we find, therefore, 
a capital fact, namely, the existence of a system of instinctive appeti- 
tions and repulsions, alike for all beings of the same species or even 
of the same “‘race.’”? What we sometimes call the social instinct seems 
rather to be the result of the fundamental similarity of instincts 
according to which all the individuals act in unison. The gregarious 
instinct is the result of the spontaneous cohesion of like animals which 
have the same needs and the same means of satisfying them. Social 
solidarity develops, even to becoming voluntary in certain cases, 
starting from the most simple existence in common. From the first 
moment, it involves the sympathetic emotions, whose individual and 
social role increases as the aggregates become more and more 
different. Gregarious life renders sociable the individual submitted 
from his very origin to the pressure which a mass of beings acting 
in solidum never fails to exercise on each of its elements. ‘“‘Social 
constraint” is ready to manifest itself when there is not yet any in- 
dividual existence clearly conscious of itself. An impulse to live in 
isolation or a repulsion against life in common, can be only a mani- 
festation of individual foresight of certain inconveniences resulting 
from the rivalry of beings of the same species, as is shown in the case 
of insects isolating themselves in order to deposit their eggs. (Cf. 
Rabaud: L’instinct del’ isolement chez les insectes; An. Psyc., XIX.) 
It is not transmitted except by imitation. 

The need of sympathetic emotions and of collective protection 
or social tutelage manifests itself with every normal being, though 
it may enter more or less clearly into conflict with misanthropy 
and a defiance of others. The latter two traits may be acquired and 
may become habitual characteristics of certain individuals. 

The vivid pleasure that men of the same origin experience in 
meeting one another in hostile environments or in distant countries 
and the pleasure of personsdeprived for a long timeof social emotions, 


178 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


shows how much the need of sympathetic affections and of mutual 
protection has become a trait of the species. 


TROPHIC AND SEXUAL INSTINCTS 


The trophic instincts are less precise with man than with most 
animals. The latter show all their life a very marked repulsion for 
certain foods and a particular desire for others. Nevertheless, the 
search for sweet and for sugar results generally in nursing the mother, 
to which corresponds with almost all the new-born instinctive 
movements of sucking. Men thus receive a common orientation 
which different kinds of food adopted by their elders, according to 
their milieus and resources, modify more or less and complete by 
creating particular tastes. But the universal need of food, to be 
satisfied periodically, obliges beings to unite for the search in common 
for food. Only the lack of nutritive resources can bring scissions 
and even the search for and saving of reserves by little groups or by 
isolated individuals. Domestic economy, which participates in 
a collective egoism, is born of this opposition of groups (formerly 
clans or tribes or hordes). The strongest work and economize 
for the weakest. 

This devotion, limited to a group, reposes throughout, since the 
institution of families, on an instinct particularly driving, the 
sexual instinct and its normal consequence, the love of parents for 
children. 

The desires which end in reproduction are among the blindest so 
far as the purpose of the acts and behavior which they determine 
are concerned. But social life, which opposes more or less the 
immediate realizations, the sudden impulsions, which obliges the 
unquiet being, tormented by a vague desire or dominated by a 
passion whose object is already precise, to submit himself to a 
number of conditions imposed by the folkways, customs, prejudices, 
and laws of a complex social order,—has had on the human sexual 
instinct such an influence that love has taken the most diverse forms, 
while becoming also one of the principal motives of life and one of 
the predominant preoccupations of organized groups, as well as 
one of the essential factors of civilization. Among the most remark- 
able phenomena of all the psycho-sociological domain is the recip- 
rocal action of society on the individual and of the individual on 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 179 


society in all that concerns the instinct of reproduction and the 
protection of the young. The mutual pursuit of each other by 
beings of the opposite sex does not go on without a sort of exalta- 
tion of each one. This brings the male to develop, as much as he 
can and often without knowing why, the means of seduction which 
reside in the manifestation of his strength, of his courage, of his 
need of conquest and of domination. This exaltation has been 
pointed to with reason as one of the causes of heroism, which tending 
to the highest vital expansion, goes beyond its object and leads often 
to death. Society furnishes to the males, thus borne on by pride or 
vanity or the love of parade, the means of obtaining exquisite value. 
Chivalrous tournaments have no other purpose. Worldly assemblies, 
balls, the most aristocratic as the most vulgar, fétes, mounted 
contests and others, are in great part derived from the need of dis- 
play in view of sexual ends. 

On the other hand, the feminine nature is borne on by the 
sexual appetite to an apprehension more or less vague, in which we 
see the beginning of what, with civilization, has become modesty. 
There is much more of spontaneous, natural restraint, independent 
of every social and moral consideration, with the woman than with 
the man. The man is aggressive, while the woman holds herself 
always more or less on the defensive, even when she abandons her- 
self to the most ardent passion. Modesty is quasi-universal, as 
Ribot recognizes, although he does not believe that it can be re- 
garded as an instinct. It is connected with timidity, with a sort of 
shame at the desire experienced and which manifests itself although 
one seeks to hide it. It ought then to increase with social represssion 
of the feminine sexual appetite, a repression organized by education 
and custom. The exaggeration of social constraint in certain strata 
of society brings about with women and young girls a prudery 
which amounts to a misplaced inhibition. Ignorance and especially 
the absence of sexual emotion, have the same effect as experience 
and the disappearance of all apprehension. Immodesty can mani- 
fest itself in the same fashion as ignorance. But ordinarily and 
always because of collective pressure, feminine impudence hides 
itself and reveals itself only in little circles of initiates. Thus it ends 
in becoming a moral perversion. 

The mental development of man has permitted him to make 


180 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


elevated sentiments and particularly the esthetic sentiment play 
an important role in the search for means of satisfying his 
sexual desires. The appetite, which is non-selective or too feebly 
selective at first, has become a selective desire. Love almost pre- 
supposes choice, and choice is due to all sorts of reasons more or 
less obscure, among which the attraction of grace and beauty 
are forced to enter. Now, although the esthetic sentiments are 
individualized to such a point that one would find an objective 
criterion of beauty with difficulty, it must be recognized that each 
epoch and social milieu has its particular conception of beauty, 
of grace and of feminine seduction. The opinion of each is more 
or less prompt to inspire itself with the common opinion and to 
submit itself to the official control of a general appreciation. 

With the vain, a choice which conforms to a sort of designation 
by public opinion is always the most probable. The woman chooses 
for other reasons. She is inspired less by esthetic considerations 
than by obscure emotions, among which the presence of compassion, 
of a quasi-charitable desire to procure the happiness of men or 
repair an injustice in their lot, sometimes by a sacrifice of herself. 
It is necessary to add, as a motive of the feminine choice, the desire 
to subordinate herself to a strong will, to be protected by a being 
courageous and powerful, or to participate in theadvantages of 
high social position. 

The economic conditions of existence have introduced venality 
and considerations of material interest as obstacles to the existence 
of a stable and profound amorous sentiment. They have brought a 
regression toward the satisfaction of the animal sexual appetite. 
Marriages without love have as their counterpart illegitimate or 
immoral unions or liasons. Social conveniences have often opposed 
the normal effects of the familial institution. 

Hunger and love are two natural means, two necessary condi- 
tions of individual and collective life. They are as inseparable as 
the individual and society. And man, so proud of his intelligence 
and his introspection, is no more successful than animals in seeing 
toward what end these fundamental appetites take him. That is 
why, after all, we find them so often perverted by human civilization. 
The appetite for food has become with certain persons gormand- 
izing, voracity, gluttony. Among others it has become daintiness 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 181 


and a search for abnormal means of satisfying tastes which have 
been altered or depraved. Society has responded to the correspond- 
ing needs by industries and commerce, by modes of collective 
existence appropriate to the luxuries of the table, a thing which 
determines with individuals some desires and tastes, which divert 
appetite from its natural end. 

The sexual appetite in taking erotic satisfaction for its exclusive 
end has turned easily into lewdness, into debauchery, into the search 
for sterile and enervating pleasures. Social life is organized accord- 
ing to this perversion. It has multiplied the occasions of erotic 
excitation (theaters, fetes, exhibitions, toilets, modes). It has 
partly regulated prostitution; has complaisantly let clandestine 
prostitution develop; has created cities of “pleasure,” a pornographic 
literature, a lascivious art, a libidinous music, an industry of per- 
fumes, etc. Almost all individuals have submitted to the influence 
of the group, thus falsely oriented, by giving to eroticism its part, 
more or less great, in the encounter with normal sexual life. Mal- 
thusianism and debauchery have shackled reproduction, done 
harm to natural selection and to the vitality of the human species. 
Paternal and natural love have often become enfeebled under the 
influence of overexcited, lustful passions. And social education 
has undergone the dangerous effects of a turning from the future 
represented by the children. These are evils of all epochs and they 
appear almost inevitable, precisely because human instincts grow 
feeble in the measure that intelligent personal adaptation is de- 
veloped. 


PRESERVATION AND PROTECTION 


The preservation of the species implies that of each element. 
The individual in danger is interested above all in his own defense, 
so his first movement is to seek protection and aid near his own 
kind (the gregarious instinct). It may happen to him not to find 
the hoped for succor and to have to use his own means of defense. 
So we see with all animals a specific preadaptation for personal 
defense, specific means to repulse an enemy, to frighten him, to 
seize him, to destroy him and to get hold of everything which is 
necessary to protection and nutrition. The instinct of self-preserva- 
tion has its extension in hereditary tendencies which are related 
to habitat, clothing and cleanliness. Whenever the solidary social 


182 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


elements can co-operate for individual and collective preservation, 
in any of the ways which have just been indicated, habits and, at 
need, social institutions are never in default. Thus struggle deter- 
mines armament. War gives birth to armies and the warrior spirit 
gives to each individual, accustomed to struggle, a combative 
spirit, which can become by heredity a marked propensity to ag- 
gression upon others, to discussion, to polemics. The need for 
collective defense gives rise to the common habitat, isolated or 
fortified, which becomes the castle or fortress, and, on the other 
hand, the private habitation, little by little reserved for a number more 
and more restricted, the individuals of the same family. Collective 
defense against inclement weather ends in the same result. Common 
protection against contagious diseases, of relatively recent origin, 
is connected by very ancient mystical procedures with ‘‘the instinct 
of cleanliness,’ remarkable in certain animal species and acquired 
without doubt by natural selection of varieties more sensitive 
than others to the inconveniences resulting from contamination. 
From the preservation of the common health is born progressively 
in individuals the need of bodily hygiene.! 

Hunting, fishing, and agriculture have begun by being collective 
occupations responding to the general need of food. Possession 
has been at first collective. Then it has become familial at the same 
time with the habitat or dwelling place. In this way, it is believed 
there has been established a specific tendency to personal appro- 
priation and to the development of private property. The predatory 
appetites of certain animal species have, without doubt, been able 
to develop in certain human tribes, who were nomads by preference. 
They have given birth in certain groups and certain human individ- 
uals to tendencies to rapine, to conquest, to the possession of 
booty, to depredation. 

Here the instinct has been frequently and in many ways per- 
verted by individual adaptations, more or less in harmony with specific 
impulses. In general, animals of the same species do not make war 
upon one another. Men oppose with arms in hand the possession of 
goods by those who covet them and they enter into struggle against 
one another, not only race against race, nation against nation, 


1 It is said that typhus fever was stamped out by the instinct of cleanliness. It returned during the war 
only because cleanliness was impossible for the soldiers.—Tr. 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 183 


group against group, but individual against individual. Attack 
involves defense. Violence calls for violence. Defeat demands 
vengeance or revenge. The consciousness of private property and 
the desire for personal appropriation go on increasing in the measure 
that the state of war perpetuates itself and as violence, rapine, 
depredation and the abuse of force become more numerous. This is 
emphasized more and more as the free individual possession of goods 
increases. It does not appear necessary to invoke an instinct of 
property in order to explain by it the generalization of the tendency 
to settle in a particular domain, to acquire property for one’s self 
alone and to preserve for himself what he has acquired, nor to ex- 
plain the desire to possess instruments and arms, clothing, and 
personal souvenirs of special origin. It is a matter, therefore, of a 
direct extension of the personality. The more action is individ- 
ualized, each one having acquired special aptitudes, thanks to the 
division of labor, the more easily is it conceived that each one holds 
to preserving for himself the means of action or the means of adapta- 
tion which have anintimate character. But the increasing need to 
assure a free disposition of goods, more and more extended, and 
means of action more and more effective, results in a foresight 
which cannot fail to engender too numerous experiences of spoliation 
or usurpation. It has been judged convenient to admit a deep-seated 
egoism whose manifestations we find in all animals. Dominated by 
their appetites they enter into a struggle in order to assure them- 
selves of individual satisfactions. But the competitions of animals 
which end in the rule of the strongest or of the most courageous, 
occur only so far as they are imposed by scarcity of resources or by 
sexual appetite. They do not know how to make of each of their 
competitors a beneficiary of the common activity turned to his 
profit, or the only beneficiary of his own activity, directed exclusive- 
ly to the satisfaction of his particular desires. It is only under 
these conditions that we can speak of egoism. And, in defining 
the egoistic sentiment, we see that it is predominant only rarely 
with civilized men. 


CoMMUNISM AND EGOIsM 


Primitive communism, as shown by vestiges of paleolithic ages, 
reposed on the very absence of individualistic tendencies—born 


184 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


finally of an inevitable social differentiation—or at all events on 
tendencies having no harmful effect on the clan. The Hottentots, 
Fuegians, Australians, and Esquimaux are still generally commun- 
ists, or they are solidaries to so great an extent that we may call 
them not egoists but socialists, in a perfectly primitive sense of the 
term. 

“The Primitives,” says Kropotkin in the Entraide, ‘identify 
their lives so much with that of their tribe, that their every act, 
however significant it may be, is considered as an affair which con- 
cerns all. The idea of the clan is always present to their minds and 
the constraint of self and the sacrifice of self in the interest of the 
clan is met with daily. Within the tribe, the rule, each one for all 
is sovereign.” 

The savage has no merit beyond that of sacrificing himself 
spontaneously, of devoting himself to others, and of sharing with 
his companions everything which he has in his possession at the 
moment. He has not attained a sufficient degree of intellectual 
development to oppose himself to the collective mass. Psychologi- 
cally, itis almost impossible for him to manifest egoism. And in the 
measure in which altruism is the opposite of egoism it does not yet 
exist, since it presupposes an intentional sacrifice for another. It is 
appropriate to speak only of spontaneous solidarity, of pure sociabil- 
ity, of a gregarious instinct more or less developed. Barbarism 
marks the passage of primitive communism over to the individual- 
ism of the civilized. But within the horde or tribe we do not yet 
see a true egoism appearing. What weknowof the ancient Francs, 
of the mountaineers of the Caucasus, of the inhabitants of Kabul, 
shows us the step toward private property and the increasing 
care for individual interests, but with a strong propensity toward 
life in common, sanctioned generally by imperative rules and meas- 
ures of repression, if necessary, so that there shall be no failure in 
the duty of giving mutual aid. 

Nevertheless, the habit of pillage, of spoliation, of violence, of 
abduction, of theft by ruse or by armed bands to the detriment of 
foreign communities and even of neighbors, has been able only to 
develop in each individual a spirit of inequity or of personal cu- 
pidity in harmony with the collective tendency. Thus egoism appears 
as an individual evil derived from a social evil. It grows with civiliza- 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 185 


tion and personal reflection, because the intelligence of each individual 
is more and more employed in the satisfaction of immediate needs, 
of individual desires rendered always more pressing and more varied 
by very diverse social relations and by the increasing role of per- 
sonalities in the collective life. 

This evolution suffices to show how far egoism is from being a 
fundamental tendency, an instinct of self-preservation taking for its 
end, in the encounter with other instincts, the individual exclusively 
to the detriment of the species. On the contrary, egoism is com- 
batted in each of us by instinctive impulses or by their derivatives, 
which bring us back without ceasing and often without our know- 
ledge, toward the subordination of individual ends to the interests 
of the species and the group. Although in the love of civilized 
people, one can see with reason the search for egoistic satisfaction, 
namely, the satisfaction due to the esteem of others, to exclusive 
predominance or to the importance of a personal role-—we cannot 
forget that this egoistic satisfaction strongly resembles that of the 
drone bee which, in the nuptial flight, sacrifices his own existence 
for the good of the species, in the joy of a brief triumph. The sexual 
instinct is stronger than the fear of death, to such a point that the 
amorous exaltation frequently drives the lovers, most smitten with 
each other, to their own annihilation. This is an abnegation which 
singularly contradicts the hypothesis of an egoistic instinct. 

Vanity, in which the egoist seems to make display of himself 
complacently, requires all sorts of sacrifices to social exigencies 
and it is often only a means whereby the desirous community ob- 
tains a superior service from the individual at little expense. With- 
out doubt this is the reason why such a feeling has not been re- 
strained by the social environment but has often been encouraged, 
notably by honorable distinctions, titles, stripes, and decorations. 

How many times is the individual, who is most careful of success 
and exclusively personal advantages, obliged by the very exigencies 
of an action with an egoistic motive, to devote himself to collective 
ends? Is not intelligent egoism a thing which reconciles public 
interests and private interests in an altruistic action? The complex 
ego-altruistic sentiments, which correspond to conciliation of pro- 
gressive individualization and of indispensable socialization, are 
the motives in the adult civilized consciousness, which best accord 


186 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


with these two antagonistic forces of human nature. These are 
hereditary impulsion and intelligent determination. 


SYMPATHETIC EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTIVE IMITATION 


Much more “‘instinctive’ than the majority of affective states 
of civilized man of the present time are the emotions which have 
originated as means of defense or of preservation. The first is rage, 
which often precedes or replaces true courage. It makes the in- 
dividual reckless of real dangers and does not permit the evocation 
of imaginary perils. It aims to destroy the obstacle and to frighten 
the adversary by the very preparation for acts of defense and offense. 

Fear, which is the opposite of rage, makes us flee from dangers 
even vaguely imagined or hardly conceived. It varies from normal 
apprehension to the most morbid, paralzying terror, which may go 
so far as to produce catalepsy or hypnotic sleep. 

Malaise due to fatigue may be mentioned next. It preserves the 
individual from excessive effort and from an ineffective expenditure 
of energy. It also stimulates the endeavor to attain a new rhythm 
or a better functioning of the organism. 

Rage and fear are two emotions capable of rapid propagation in 
animal and human groups, because of the universal aptitude for 
affective imititation or sympathy. ‘This affective imitation is a 
particular case of imstinctive imitation. Such imitation can be pro- 
duced only in the absence of all clearly constituted personal con- 
sciousness in groups dominated by the gregarious instinct. In such 
groups each element is little more than a replica of the neighboring 
element and where the psychology of each one can have nothing 
special either in its details or in its manifestations. The same ges- 
ture, the same movement, the same action, or the same behavior 
is repeated fatally. The herd goes forward or backward in solidum, 
with a uniform rhythm, each individual feeling and acting like 
his neighbor and each one being the collective consciousness re- 
peated in a great number of exemplars rather than an individual 
consciousness. 

In spite of social differentiation, imitation and sympathy have 
kept considerable power and the spontaneous and automatic repe- 
tition of the gestures, attitudes or affective states of another still 
imposes itself on the more civilized. Nevertheless, the more human 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 187 


beings become different, the less are they induced to imitate one 
another or the further is imitation free from producing like results. 
Its role goes on decreasing with social heterogeneity, like that of all 
the manifestations of hereditary preadaptation. Intentional adapta- 
tion, which is at the basis of apprenticeship, under the most varied 
forms sometimes assumes more importance than spontaneous imita- 
tion and agrees better with individual independence and with the 
progress due to happy variations. Routine, which results from 
unintelligent repetition or is imposed by social constraint, is opposed 
to courageous innovations just as the conservative spirit, which 
participates in traditional imitation, opposes itself to the revolu- 
tionary spirit. It is sometimes difficult to reconcile these two in- 
fluences. 

The resulting conflicts which manifest this opposition most clear- 
ly are frequently sources of political and economic perturbation and 
give birth to hostile parties in such a way that individuals are 
often pulled in opposite directions by the need of living in conformity 
with the milieu and tradition and by the desire to act according 
to original conceptions. But independence and revolt, themselves, 
easily become an affair of imitation and one rarely sees originality 
which is not, in other respects, a conformity. 

The term, imitation, is susceptible of a usage so extended that 
one may, with Tarde and Baldwin, see in almost all social facts 
a part which is the reproduction of earlier processes perceived in the 
activities of others. We may even refer social and individual prog- 
ress to ‘‘interference between imitations” (Tarde). But what is 
more important here is the universal tendency to put one’s self in 
unison with others practically and effectively, a tendency which can 
only be referred to the fundamental similarity of beings of the same 
species, to the fundamental identity of their natures, of their in- 
stincts, of their modes of activity, of emotivity, of appetition or of 
repulsion which are derived from it. It seems that common nature 
sees obscurely how to maintain and perpetuate itself in each in- 
dividual by opposing as much as possible too great divergences 
and that the essential function of imitation is thus determined. 
Every other role depends on the utilization of the natural aptitude 
to repeat another to the profit of other ends indefinitely variable. 

Sympathy, as the spontaneous imitation of the affective states of 


188 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


another, adds to the psychomotor harmony, due to similarity, 
a harmony of feelings, which leads to the manifestation in common 
of tendencies suited to determine collective action. Uniformity 
of emotions, of desires, of means of adaptation and of the execution 
of common plans are amply able to make social life predominate 
over individual energies which are more or less dissident. Like 
imitation, sympathy decreases in the measure that social homo- 
geneity gives place to a differentiation of temperaments, characters, 
and individual aptitudes. Pure sympathy exists only so far as the 
mental substitution of another for one’s self meets no obstacle in 
too great a difference between the two beings and only so far as 
there does not exist an antagonistic motive, such as opposition of 
interests, rivalry able to arouse hate, envy, or jealousy. The more 
the emotion, which serves as the point of departure, appears foreign 
to personal interest, the more it puts directly at stake the general 
care to preserve existence, biological integrity, health, and the quiet 
possession of indispensable goods, the more can the sympathetic 
emotion be produced and engender the spontaneous accord for 
action or defense or protection become a common necessity. 

Great currents of sympathy can appear ina crowd, an assembly, 
a community, a nation or several nations, who suddenly put a con- 
siderable moral and material force at the service of interests which 
have become general. Without the propagation of sympathetic 
feelings they would remain individuals. Thus have multitudes become 
impassioned for the reparation of an iniquity committed to the 
detriment of a single individual, because all have felt themselves 
to be threatened by the possibility of a similar fate. The individual 
effects of collective sympathy are of undeniable importance for the 
constitution of habits, sentiments, ways of acting. Far more power- 
ful than simple imitation is the emotional harmony, which imposes 
itself on each individual of a social aggregate, and fashions him in 
such a way as to realize a common type which imitation and educa- 
tion perpetuate. 


SocrAL COMPETITION AND CO-OPERATION 


The frequency of sympathetic emotions in the origin of every 
human civilization can only render peculiarly painful the disappro- 
bation of the group and cause collective approbation to be sought 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 189 


for almost spontaneously. Some writers have admitted an in- 
stinctive need of approbation, which appears with excessive intensity 
in certain pathological cases, such as general paralysis and in a meas- 
ure in the moral sentiment. There may be seen in it one of the origins 
of pride, of vanity, and of the self-satisfaction that is experienced 
when one believes himself assured of being the object of esteem, 
praise, or favorable appreciation on the part of others. Why, indeed, 
should every human being set his heart on having himself valued, 
on putting in relief his personality, his means of action, his bio- 
logical, intellectual, or social advantages, if an impulsive need of 
arousing the approbation of the greatest possible number of in- 
dividuals did not remain from the long subordination of every 
individual to collective tendencies and feelings? The desire for 
personal expansion, for power, for esteem, for recognized value, 
ambition, in short, is not related so much to an inconsequent egoism 
as to a need, of social origin, which makes the individual prize 
dignity, honor, reputation, and good renown, more than all material 
satisfaction. The result is that he often remains all his life the slave 
of public opinion and antipathy, disdain, and contempt torture him 
cruelly. The lover holds often to the esteem of the beloved woman 
more than to any other satisfaction and it has been remarked with 
reason that for most deceived husbands, the wound is especially 
@amour propre. For pride thus to triumph over love isit not neces- 
sary that it have a deep root in human nature? 

But pride and ambition involve envy, jealousy, emulation, 
rivalries, hate, anti-social impulses, and egoistic passions. Society, 
which has so much to suffer from the competiton in which individuals 
engage, cannot stop provoking, supporting, and embittering the 
tendencies which make men just so many rivals, so many wolves 
for other men. Communities accord their esteem to those who 
respond best to their desires, to community inclinations, to those 
who live and permit it to develop according to its deep instincts or 
the passing aspirations of the multitude. The crowd is flattered 
to see competitors contest for its favors. The regime of competition 
dates from the day when animals followed en masse the victor 
in single combat, deserting the weak with antipathy because of 
his relative powerlessness. To get the better of another, from a given 
point of view, has become by virtue of social organization the 


190 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


object of passionate efforts with many people, generally doomed 
to failure or suffering by a perversion of the need of appro- 
bation or esteem born in the gregarious state. Unfortunately, 
competition thus instituted is very far from ending in a suitable 
selection. Those who triumph are not ordinarily the best suited 
to give to a community the expected satisfactions. Competition 
develops the spirit of trickery, of cheating, the tendency to appear 
other than one truly isand to resort to the most injurious weapons 
in order to eliminate the competitors, who are judged to be the most 
formidable. A large assembly of the most varied values would be 
preferable to an elimination, often baneful, to the very society 
which deprives itself of important contributions. But can social 
nature be other than individual pride and its own nature demand? 

Despite the rivalries of individuals, families, groups, and nations, 
social co-operation remains the safeguard of the existence of the 
species and it is realized by all sorts of means, which show human 
intelligence to be as apt in means for completing the work of the 
blind instinct as in opposing it and in turning it from its primitive 
ends. 


LANGUAGE AND PLAY 


One of the most important factors of co-operation is the specific 
tendency to communicate impressions to others, to express affective 
states and desires in order to obtain aid and protection. It is this 
tendency which constitutes what is called the instinct of language. 
It has effects properly called human and differently important 
from those of vague inter-animal communication of emotions, 
which serve as signs of warning or appeal. Man has comprehended 
the importance of the sign to the point of making a mental substitute 
for the thing signified. Human intelligence has had, therefore, a 
preponderant role in the development of language. But a natural 
stimulus was necessary, and we believe we find it surely in the 
general need of giving to sympathetic emotions a continuation or a 
re-enforcement by gestures, accompanying and completing spon- 
taneous mimicry, and by phonation born of the emotional state. 
Can we say that the infant actually notices the effect of his cries, 
which bring about the help of his mother or his nurse, and that he 
infers the possibility of serving himself at will by this means of 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 191 


giving rise to the attentions of another, without being brought by 
the same logic to recognize that primitive man, as well as other 
animals, had made the same observation (or acted asif he had made 
it by a practical inference much less intellectual than we can conceive) 
and that the whole species, by spontaneous imitation, by sympathy, 
by natural use of the same means has been brought promptly to re- 
sort to language by gestures and by varied intonations, starting 
from cries emitted at first unintentionally? The organ of phonation, 
more or less modified by use, has, with all men by virtue of the same 
physiology, acquired and confirmed a social function, which is 
exercised by means of apprenticeship and thanks to a complex 
individual experience and which it is very difficult to acquire. This 
is the communication to another of states too intimate to be ex- 
perienced by simple sympathy. Gregarious life has imposed on all 
men of the same group the same modes of phonation,—an individual 
language having no raison d’etre. 

A powerful psycho-sociological bond, capable of uniting all those 
who have a life in common, by distinguishing them and separating 
them from all those who have not the same vocables, introduced 
at a happy moment into human groups some fecund germs of com- 
plete understanding of political and religious unity, and between 
them some germs of opposition and of increasing differentiation. 
The difference of language has been and remains, by reason of the 
difficulties it involves, a source of conflicts, of antipathies, of un- 
justified suspicions, of reciprocal incomprehension, or of insuffi- 
cient harmony between nations as between individuals. A common 
language has become the condition of perfect co-operation in the 
realization of common labors. 

There is a mode of collective activity which surpasses language. 
It is play. Many animals play. That is they expend, without any 
other utility than that of procuring pleasure for themselves, in 
common or in isolation, an energy available because of leisure. 
Amost all men experience from infancy the need to play. That is 
why we admit with Groos an instinct of play, which seems at least 
to approximate the need of sympathetic action, whenever it is not 
a matter of simple letting-go of the imagination, but a disinterested 
expenditure in common of individual energies put in harmony for 
the collective pleasure. The dance and the song seem to have been 


192 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


the first human games, linked with the pleasure of biological activity, 
notably respiratory and muscular, according to an easy rhythm or 
one rendered easy by exercise. The pleasure that this mode of 
muscular and nervous expenditure produces, appears not to be 
simply that of an easy activity. It has an unconcious finality, since 
it stimulates to exercises often useful, preparatory to serious activity, 
to the chase, to struggle, to combat, when it is a matter of dancing 
or gymnastics,—to amorous seduction, when it is a matter of singing, 
or of some other game which permits the individual to make his 
address, his strength, his physical aptitudes, his grace, or his beauty 
appreciated. 

With primitive peoples, play is not clearly distinguished from 
utilitarian activity, as imagination is not distinguished from ob- 
jective perception. That is why it is convenient to prefer disin- 
terested activity to the expenditure of energy, to collective effort, 
whatever be its end or purpose. The individual does not always 
know, in fact he is often ignorant so far as he remains under the 
domination of the gregarious solidarity, as to what is the end of 
his activity. He moves or acts in a determinate fashion by custom 
or example or by social constraint without giving himself a justi- 
fication other than the feeling of necessity, the nature of which he 
does not seek. The sthenic emotions, aiding the tendencies to be 
satisfied and propitious for the expansion of the whole being, suffice 
to determine an expenditure of activity which has the advantage 
of supporting joy. One leaps, one laughs, one sings. The child 
takes to running, to gesticulating, to making grimaces and pirou- 
ettes, which are at once imitated by his comrades, more and more 
sympathetic. The excitement gradually gains and games are born. 
They endure. They complicate themselves, supporting by a pleasure 
forever renewed, the desire to expend one’s self in common. 

Now from play to art, there is, at the beginning of civilization, 
only a slight distance. It suffices that the pleasure of seeing and 
hearing, the nascent esthetic emotion, comes to add itself to disin- 
terested activity. Later comes the agreement of the expression and of 
the evocation in common of thoughts, feelings, and collective aspira- 
tions and finally the opposition between the emotions aroused 
“by pure sport” and affections, agreeable or painful, relating to 
interests to be safeguarded, to existence to be defended or to success 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 193 


in the battle of life. Play ending in art only augments the power 
of the social bond of sympathetic emotions, and it is not surprising 
that civilization has developed means of socializing individual 
energies so efficacious as public games, fetes, and spectacles, ‘‘the 
most noble pleasure of assembled men.” 


THE PsycHoLoGIcAL LAw oF VARIATIONS OF INSTINCT 


The domain of instinct conceived as hereditary impulsion appears 
now sufficiently extended so that social life may be clearly connected 
by its very foundations to the natural foundations of affective life 
and of psychomotor activity, common to all individuals whatever 
their stage of civilization. Pure sociology ignores instincts because 
they are impulses felt only by the individual. It ignores by so much 
the bio-physical bases of gregarious existence. Pure psychology 
does not make us acquinted with the ways, often indirect, by which 
the instincts act on individual psychology after having had social 
effects. Disregard of this can bring with it only great errors of 
interpretation or innumerable obscurities. Social psychology, by 
showing the reciprocal action of individual psychology on social 
life and of the latter on personal determination, alone permits us 
to explain ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, in short, of be- 
havior, both individual and collective, which ancestral or specific 
(i.e. of the species) preadaptations justify in the last analysis. 

Every hereditary impulse, specific or ancestral, in becoming an 
“element” of a particular consciousness is distinguished fatally from 
the same impulse in another consciousness. The error of those 
biologists or psychologists, who see the bundles of characteristic 
instincts of a species asa fixed block of immutable elements, trans- 
missible like the pieces of a machine and able to pass from one 
mechanism to another without undergoing transformation, is analo- 
gous to the error at the basis of the association psychology. It should 
be especially avoided in psycho-sociology. Every hereditary 
factor of individual determination becomes a crystallization of all 
the forms taken by the individual processes, in consequence of 
experience, of contingent adaptations, and of individual innova- 
tions. With most animals, individuality does not end in the con- 
stitution of personalities very different from one another. Particu- 
lar innovations are few. The conditions of existence vary but little 


194 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


from individual to individual. That is why hereditary impulses 
appear as uniform and relatively fixed. 

One may pass at first from instinct to behavior of the species. 
The way of living and acting of a community is that of the in- 
dividual and, reciprocally that of each specimen is entirely sub- 
ordinated to the social mode. 

In the human species, it is not the same. In the measure that 
cerebral plasticity and the varied exigencies of changing adaptations 
have differentiated types more distinctly, the specific or ancestral 
impulses have been called upon to submit more to the influence of 
personal variations. The latter, which exempt the human per- 
sonality, more or less, from the fatalism so marked in the animal 
world, permit the community to modify itself by reason of spon- 
taneous imitation and to establish, by right of social innovations, 
certain common variations imposed on all by natural constraint. 
They are transmitted at first by the normal way of social inheri- 
tance and finally integrated by the process of bio-psychic heredity. 
Thus we have the explanation of the facts described above, which 
have shown that human instincts have become the point of de- 
parture of numerous institutions or social functions and that the 
latter have reacted in turn on heredity to the point of sometimes 
turning the specific impulses from their primitive destination. 

From the psycho-sociological point of view, the laws of in- 
stinctive activity, applied to the individual and society, should be 
subordinated to the following fundamental principle. 


THE LAw oF INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL VARIATIONS 


The specific instinct is modified under the influence of individual 
variations, which have become collective by socialization (imitation, 
tradition, social inheritance, and constraint). This modification 
goes on in the measure in which individuals become more suited to 
innovations in their interdependence (social solidarity more and 
more complex). The application of this law to different moments 
of animal and human evolution shows verifiable deductions: 

(1) The antagonism of specific, blind, irresistible impulsiveness 
directed toward the ends of the individual or the species and of the 
development of personal consciousness in the midst of social soli- 
darity. Civilized men are less and less strictly submitted to the 


HUMAN INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 195 


tyranny of their instincts. Reflection dissolves primitive instinct 
and sometimes substitutes aberrations for it. 

(2) The progressive substitution in humanity of hereditary 
tendencies, more and more complex and varied, for animal instincts 
relatively simple. Hereditary tastes and distastes are substituted 
for well determined trophic appetites, under the influence of folk- 
ways and customs more and more widespread and consolidated in 
different human environments. For primitive means of protection 
against inclement weather, dangers and enemies of all sorts, there 
are substituted progressively hereditary tendencies to clothe them- 
selves, warm themselves, shelter themselves under a roof, a tent, 
or in houses; to arm themselves, to employ strategem, and to 
maintain cleanliness, because of an increasing distaste for the 
various forms of uncleanness which are harmful to society. The 
instinct of reproduction, transformed by individual and social 
modifications, from the sex appetite and its consequences, from 
love under all its forms, has lost its sovereign sway. The celibate 
and asceticism show this even to the point of inspiring certain 
manifestations of mysticism. 

The instinct of sociability which drives animals to live in herds, 
flocks or groups (but without passing beyond the ordinary forms 
of gregarious life except for the organized form of communism of 
ants and bees) has finally brought man to the organization of 
public life, not only to the economic point of view but to the juri- 
dical point of view. This has been brought about by his passing 
through the very important stage of the religious community, 
where the social bond has been felt so vividly as to appear sacred. 
Now, in consequence of the increasing power of society and the state, 
individual sociability has become complicated with preoccupations, 
such as the desire for esteem, the need for approbation, or the fear 
of public scorn. The latter has become hereditary as shown by 
certain forms of shame or modesty. The animal instinct for play, 
for the disinterested expenditure of energy, ending in useful ex- 
ercises, has undergone also in the human species the most curious 
transformations through collective or individual variations, fetes, 
divertisements, etc. The hereditary need of appropriating as many 
personal means of action as possible, as well as means of enjoyment, 
subsistence, and protection, is affirmed with singular energy in 


196 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


human civilization. It has exercised a very marked influence on the 
constitution of states, a condition which can only increase still more 
the primitive power of impulsion, amply differentiated. Animal curi- 
osity, but little developed and often counterbalanced by misoneism, 
which is better suited to the conservatism of creatures already 
satisfactorily adapted by heredity, can but increase with the diversity 
of means of human adaptation. Consequently there arises a thirst 
for scientific knowledge and the rational impulse to organize ob- 
jective representation under social control. Law is then confirmed 
by the observation of facts. Even general biology must be taken 
into consideration. As for psychology, it must modify the traditional 
conception of instinct not only by recognizing its relative variability 
but by considering its evolution as subordinated to variable social 
conditions. 


THE MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 


A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF A SELECTED EXAMPLE—ONE OF 
THE SMALLER PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS 


By GLEN WAKEHAM 


I. Introduction, p. 197 
Il. Choice of Subject, p. 198 
III. Method of Inquiry, p. 207 
IV. Report on Questionnaires, p. 212 
V. General Conclusions, p. 227 
VI. Summary, p. 230 
VII. Bibliography, p. 231 


I. INTRODUCTION 

The motives which actuate altruistic conduct do not seem to 
have been scientifically or statistically studied. Many obvious diffi- 
culties beset the attempt. The subject can be defined only in a 
general, indefinite way and there is no accepted rule of quantitative 
measurement. Altruistic individuals might condemn an examination 
of the psychological causation of their conduct as akin to the sin 
against the Holy Ghost. Gibbon always treated Christianity with 
marked respect and was at great pains to explain that his famous 
inquiry into the causes of the rise of Christianity involved only the 
secondary factors concerned in that stupendous phenomenon; never- 
theless he was hotly attacked by the clergy of his age for sacrilege 
and atheism. A more tolerant generation will probably not resent 
what can be hardly more than a tentative, experimental examination 
of one composite yet unique and highly characteristic example of 
mass-altruism based upon a well-defined syndrome of religious 
motives. 

The well-known philanthropist! whose financial support made 
possible the research here recorded is a firm believer in Christianity. 
He desires it to be expressly stated that his chief object is “‘to aid in 
the establishment, on earth, of the Kingdom of God so frequently 


1 The gentleman in question chooses to remain anonymous. 


Editor’s Note. This publication does not print articles involving political or religious 
controversy and propaganda but accepts contributions from Faculty members which 
record the result of original research. Readers of the present article are asked to keep in 
mind that this study is based upon much painstaking investigation, and attention is 
especially called to the Introduction to the paper in which the author’s point of view 
is Clearly set forth. 


197 


198 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


mentioned in New Testament scripture.’® He recognizes, on the 
other hand, that there are some apparent discrepancies between the 
traditional dogmata of Christianity and the seemingly valid con- 
clusions of modern thought. He was therefore willing to finance a 
study of altruistic conduct which should start without any dogmatic 
preconceptions and was not bound by any conditions whatsoever 
regarding the methods to be used or the conclusions reached. 

While the logical untenability of many traditional religious dog- 
mata is quite generally taken for granted in modern thought, it is 
also universally recognized that religion in general and Christianity 
in particular has played an important part in developing the more 
altruistic aspects of our civilization. 

An analysis of religious phenomena which might succeed in dis- 
entangling from the masses of irrational tradition the factors which 
have made religion a blessing should be well worth while. This paper 
records a provisional feeling-out after suitable methods to accomplish 
such an analysis. It is humbly hoped that this admittedly crude in- 
vestigation may start the entrance by pure science into a vast field 
which has hitherto been left largely in the hands of partisans, dog- 
matists, and extremists. 


II. Cuoicr or SUBJECT 


In casting about for a portion of the subject-matter which could 
be treated, even crudely, in a quantitative way, the statistics of 
denominational mission-work, both home and foreign, social and 
propagandist, were examined. Immediately the work of the Seventh 
Day Adventist organization stood out as being unique in a number 
of respects. Numerous objections might be raised against the choice 
of any denominational work. It might also be denied that money 
raised for evangelistic and mission efforts, numbers of converts made, 
and similar data constitute valid measurements of altruistic conduct. 
Yet a detailed study of the Adventist system showed it to be an 
undertaking of such remarkable material success and accompanied 
by features of such unique motivation that its choice as the im- 
mediate object of this investigation seemed fully justified. 

The following statements are based upon (a) The World Allas of 


2See Matt. 3,2; 4,17; 10,7; Mark 1, 14; 9,1; 12,34; Luke 4, 23; 7,28; 8, 1; 11, 20; 17, 21; 22, 16; 
Jno. 3. 3,; etc. 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 199 


Christian Missions (1925), (b) The Sixty-fourth Annual Statistical 
Report (1926) of the Seventh Day Adventist General Conference, (c) The 
Signs of the Times (Vol. 54, No. 19), (d) the report of the United 
Stewardship Council, quoted by the Rev. Charles Stelzle in The 
World’s Work, issue of April, 1928, and (e) numerous interviews 
with leading Adventists and considerable study, at first hand, of 
Adventist institutions and Adventist practice in many parts of the 
world. 


(1). The Adventists raise three times as much money, per capita of membership, as 
any other important denomination the statistics of which are available. 

(2). They support more full-time evangelical and institutional workers per capita of 
membership than any other important denomination the statistics of which are available. 

(3). They support a more extensive and far-flung missionary organization than any 
other denomination within several times their size in membership. This enormous effort 
is almost entirely sustained by the contributions of poor people. There are very few 
wealthy Adventists. Diligent inquiry failed to discover a single Adventist millionaire, yet 
the Adventists contribute for missions three times as much per capita as their wealthiest 
competitor, and ten times as much as the Protestant average in America. 

(4). Their educational system, self-supporting and almost entirely unendowed, ex- 
tends from the primary grades to a chain of efficient colleges (including a ‘‘Grade A”’ medi- 
cal school) and provides for the education of nearly all Adventist children at an average 
expense, per capita, of less than half the average rate for other denominational and 
public schools. 

(5). Their mission effort is accompanied by industrial, educational, and medical work 
to a greater extent than is attempted by most other organizations. Some of it is partly, or 
wholly self-supporting, industrially. 

(6). A unique feature of the Adventist system is the intimate combination of a 
“health-reform” crusade with their denominational propaganda. The Adventists make 
health-culture an integral part of their doctrinal system. They operate a chain of sani- 
tariums (the word ‘sanitarium’ was first used by Adventists) of unique characteristics 
which are favorably known throughout the world. 

(7). Adventist standards of personal conduct are very strict. Two classes of prohi- 
bitions are recognized: those which constitute a ‘‘test of fellowship” and those which do not. 
Adventists may not drink, smoke, dance, play cards, nor eat ‘“‘unclean’’ meats (pork, etc.) 
The unpopular, inconvenient seventh-day Sabbath must be strictly observed. Baptism by 
immersion is obligatory. In the quarterly celebration of the Ordinances feet-washing 
precedes the administration of the Sacraments. Adventist girls in school may not wear 
jewelry, evening-dress, nor knee-short skirts. Only in the matter of divorce, perhaps, are 
Adventists less strict than Roman Catholics. All recognized vices are, of course, entirely 
prohibited. The following practices are frowned upon, although not absolutely forbidden: 
the use of tea, coffee, and flesh-meats; attending theaters, movies, etc.; sending children to 
public schools when Adventist church-schools are available. This strict code of personal 
conduct is carried out with a rigidity which is surprising in this age of general license. The 
use of even the ‘“‘mildest”’ profane language is almost unknown among Adventists. 


200 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


(8). The financial strength of the Adventist organization, like that of the Mormons, 
is due to the fact that the practice of tithe-paying is placed upon a doctrinal basis. The 
“tithe” (one tenth of all “increase,” or income) ‘belongs to the Lord” and must be paid, 
not as a voluntary offering, but as a solemn duty. Payment of tithe is not made a test of 
fellowship, but failure to do so is denounced as “robbing God.” Denominational employes 
are required to pay tithe in order to retain their positions. The tithe actually paid by the 
one hundred thousand Adventists in America amounts to nearly five million dollars an- 
nually. This fund is not used for local church-expenses but goes in toto to the ‘‘Conference” 
office, where 10% of it is subtracted and sent on to the “Union Conference” office, which, in 
turn, sends on its 10% to the “Divisional” or general headquarters of the denomination. 
In some cases the “Conference” supports a minister in a local church, but aside from this 
all church-building and upkeep expense must be provided for by donations outside of the 
tithe. In addition to the tithe and the local expenses there are numerous other “‘voluntary”’ 
offerings, ‘‘campaigns,” ‘“‘special”’ offerings, etc., so that it is safe to estimate that Advent- 
ists pay, on the average, very nearly the equivalent of a ‘‘second tithe.”’ In addition to this, 
Adventists also bear the heavy expense of educating their children in their own schools. 
As far as available statistics show, there is no other denomination which raises such exten- 
sive funds from so poor a constituency and gives them up almost entirely to a centralized 
authority for general evangelism and propaganda. The local churches get little for the 
heavy taxes they pay save inspiring reports and some employment for their sons and 
daughters. Probably not ten per cent of the total funds raised are used locally. To the 
suggestion that Adventism appeals chiefly to individuals of liberal disposition it should be 
replied that only one of the many adult converts interviewed had been a tithe-payer before 
accepting Adventism, and not a single one out of twenty-three apostates claimed to have 
continued giving on anything like the Adventist scale. 

Following the “inspired’’ instructions of Mrs. Ellen G. White (see page 202) the 
Adventist authorities strongly condemn all kinds of life insurance, holding that Christians 
should trust God for their own health and safety and for the support of their dependents in 
emergencies. Everything that can be saved should be devoted to the “finishing of the work 
in ‘this generation,’” after which all worldly goods will be worthless. ‘““Lay up your treas- 
ures in Heaven.” 

(9). The altruistic spirit of Adventism is strikingly illustrated by the denominational 
wage-scale. Fifty-three dollars a week is the maximum wage for highly skilled surgeons in 
their largest sanitariums. College presidents, deans, professors of high formal qualifications, 
and able business-managers receive about forty dollars a week, on the average; ‘Conference 
presidents” and ordained ministers between thirty and forty. Absolutely no outside work, 
extra fees, or perquisites of any kind are permitted. Any Adventist employee found doing 
outside work ‘“‘on his own” is instantly dismissed. No member of the organization, not 
excluding the highest administrative officers, is paid more than $2500 per annum. On the 
other hand, the lowest-paid workers receive fair wages. An outstanding feature of the scale 
is the relatively slight difference between the highest and lowest paid employes. The 
“President of the General Conference’’ receives less than twice the wage of the young 
college-graduate just beginning his ministry, or the janitor of a sanitarium. This is doubt- 
less a strong factor in encouraging the poorest members of the Adventist constituency to be 
“faithful” with their tithes and offerings. The wages of the more important Adventist 
employes certainly represent, on the average, less than half the market-value of the ser- 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 201 


vices rendered. In giving an important appointment a favorite Adventist ultimatum is: 
“You are not worth anything to this denomination unless you are worth twice as much 
anywhere else.”’? Whatever one may think of the fairness or justice of this policy, it cer- 
tainly constitutes an effective test of sincerity, and weeds out of the higher ranks of the 
Adventist hierarchy most of those who are not filled with zeal for the progress of the 
movement. 


The factors enumerated above do not, of course, include all the 
elements of altruism, but they certainly represent a high and highly 
characteristic type of altruistic conduct. However their motives and 
the ethical or cultural effectiveness of their work may be judged, the 
Adventists certainly excel in certain forms of attempted service to 
humanity; and the circumstances of their activities as well as these 
activities themselves differ so sharply from other forms of mass 
altruism that the causation of the phenomenon seems relatively 
accessible to differentiation and analysis. Hence the choice of 
Adventism for this study. 

The work which follows can hardly be understood without a brief 
statement of the history of the Adventist movement and an outline 
of its outstanding, characteristic doctrines. The facts of this state- 
ment are selected from Rise and Progress (Loughborough) and The 
Origin and Progress of Seventh-Day Adventism (M. E. Olsen). Dr. 
Olsen’s recent work (1926) is now the official Adventist denomina- 
tional history. (See Bibliography, page 231.) 

Seventh-Day Adventism grew out of the well-known Second- 
Advent movement which culminated in the great disappointments 
of 1843 and 1844, when thousands of pious Americans confidently 
expected the coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven. A prophetic 
phrase in the Book of Daniel—‘‘The cleansing of the sanctuary’*— 
was the basis of the prophetic calculations. To one of the dis- 
appointed Adventists came the thought, “the cleansing of the 
sanctuary is in Heaven!”’ This flash of inspiration, relegating the 
main event of the prophetic argument to Heaven and extending the 
time of probation for another more or less indefinite “generation” 
made possible the Seventh-Day Adventism of today. The denomina- 
tion which grew out of this revelation learned forever one lesson 
from the disappointment. It never again set a definite date for the 
Second Advent. ‘‘No man knoweth the day nor the hour.’* Any 


3 Daniel 8, 14. 
4 Matt. 24, 36. 


202 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


group of Adventists which, on the basis of ‘‘new light,” attempts 
““time-setting”’ is instantly repudiated by the main body. 

The Seventh Day Sabbath was introduced by the Seventh-Day 
Baptists and accepted by Adventists chiefly through the influence 
of Captain Joseph Bates, a notable pioneer.’ This doctrine, based 
upon the ‘‘binding claims of the law of God,” gave the Adventist 
system a legalistic aspect which has brought it into violent conflict 
with “‘free-from-the-law” and other similar forms of evangelism. 
Adventism does not teach “‘justification by works,” but hoids that 
the ‘‘just’’ will ‘show their faith by their works.”’ This doctrine is 
the basis of the severe Adventist code of ethical conduct. Adventists 
hold that the seventh-day Sabbath is not merely Mosaic, but Adamic, 
or even pre-Adamic. It is vitally interwoven with the whole system 
of doctrines, and brings Adventism into the sharpest conflict with 
every possible modification of evolutionary theory. The six days of 
creation were six literal, twenty-four-hour days, exactly like those of 
the present age. If thisideais abandoned, Adventism falls to pieces. 

During the fifteen years which followed the ‘“‘great disappoint- 
ment” of 1844 a complete, consistent, and highly complicated system 
of doctrines, based upon literal interpretations of the Bible, gradually 
crystallized about the personalities of Elder James White and his 
wife, the prophetess, Mrs. Ellen G. White, whose inspired, public 
“‘visions”’ supplied the supernatural element needed to start a new 
religious movement. The majority of Adventists still hold that 
Mrs. White’s voluminous writings, which include a number of well- 
written books, as well as her “‘visions,”’ were divinely inspired, and 
carry an authority second only to that of the Bible itself. 

In addition to the outstanding doctrines of evangelical Christi- 
anity, Seventh-Day Adventists hold a number of very definite 
specific beliefs, some of which are being abandoned elsewhere: 


(1). That the Bible is the only authentic divine revelation, the only ‘‘Word of God.” 
“The whole Bible and nothing but the Bible” is a slogan constantly reiterated by Advent- 
ists. The findings of “higher critics’? and the disruptive theories of modern science are 
categorically denied and condemned as dangerous deceptions. 

(2). That the biblical prophecies are capable of explicit, accurate interpretation which 
shows that the end of the world is “near, even at the door.’”’ The end of the world coincides 
with the Second Advent, the salvation of the righteous and the death of the wicked. 


5 Origin and Progress, page 185 et seq. 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 203 


(3). That the Adventist movement rose by divine providence in specific fulfilment of 
prophecy and is the special “work of God” on earth today, its object being to prepare, not 
the world as a whole, but a “hundred and forty-four thousand” for Christ’s second coming. 
This number, formerly taken literally, is now admitted to be probably figurative, as there 
are at present approximately twice that number of Adventists in the world. The stricter 
Adventists sometimes hold, however, that the “‘sifting-time” will weed out so many 
doubtful or unfaithful Adventists that the total number saved will be exactly one hundred 
and forty-four thousand. 

(4). That before the end of the world, which will certainly take place in “‘this genera- 
tion” (a generation which began eighty or ninety years ago) all mankind will be clearly 
divided into two classes—the Adventists and the others. Every individual will have the 
opportunity of deciding between Adventism and non-Adventism, and then the ‘‘end” 
will come, The Adventists will be saved: those who finally rejected it will be lost. Every 
other faith has more or less of ‘‘deception”’ in it. 

(5). That the great, final test between saints and sinners will be the Sabbath (Sat- 
urday). The seventh-day Sabbath is literally binding upon all mankind as the visible 
“seal of God,” while Sunday, the ‘‘mark of the Beast,” is a devilish invention, grafted upon 
Christianity from paganism, to deceive and ruin the vast majority of the human race. 

(6). That it is the high destiny of Adventism to “‘warn the whole world in this genera- 
tion,”’ preaching the ‘‘three-fold Message” of Revelation 14. In harmony with this mission 
Adyventism does not plan to work any portion of the ‘‘world-field” intensively but to have 
at least a few representatives in every country. It follows that Adventists, like the 
Roman Catholics, reject every proposal to divide mission territory among denominations. 
This is a necessary corollary of their fundamental beliefs. 

(7). Adventists believe that it is a sacred, religious duty to keep the body—“the 
temple of the Holy Ghost”’—in as sound a physical condition as possible, and that the laws 
of Moses constitute an inspired, scientific code of sanitation. Hence their extensive health- 
propaganda, which is called the ‘‘entering-wedge” and the “‘right arm of the Message.” 
The Adventist institutions have been pioneers in the introduction of many therapeutic 
innovations which are now universally recognized as rational. There is nothing sacramental 
about the Adventist dietetic code. It is believed to be a divinely inspired, yet entirely 
rational mode of adherence to the laws of health. 

(8). That immortality is not an inherent property of the soul but the “gift of God,” 
reserved for the righteous. The dead are unconscious. There will be two resurrections, one 
for the righteous, at the second Advent, and the second, a thousand years later, for the 
wicked, who will be raised for punishment and final destruction by fire. 

(9). That the Jewish tabernacle was a symbol and copy of a real ‘“‘heavenly sanctuary” 
where the detailed records of the guardian angels of all mankind have been kept, and where 
the ministry of Christ, in a very literal way, is still going on. The “Cleansing of the 
Sanctuary” which, according to prophecy, actually began in 1844, is an examination of the 
records of those who have any chance of being saved. Judgment will be passed on these so 
that those accorded salvation will be able to participate in the “First resurrection” at the 
second Advent. The wicked-dead will be judged by the righteous living, in heaven, during 
the thousand years immediately following the second Advent. This is the Adventist 
millennium. At the second coming of Christ, “in power and great glory,” all non-Adventists 
will be killed ‘‘by the brightness of His coming.”’ The Adventists will be taken to Heaven 


204 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


and the earth will remain desolate for a thousand years, uninhabited save by the Devil 
and his angels, who, during this period, will be able to meditate upon the ruin they have 
wrought. At the end of the thousand years, when the judgment of the wicked is complete, 
Christ and the righteous will return to the earth, the wicked will be resurrected for pun- 
ishment and destruction by fire, the Devil and his angels will also be destroyed, ultimately 
and finally, and the righteous will build a ““New Earth” upon this fire-cleansed and puri- 
fied globe. 


It seemed necessary to give this list of characteristic doctrines, 
which is far from complete, to illustrate the general nature of 
Adventist theology with its minute rigidity of detail, its literal 
interpretation of many scriptural passages usually passed over as 
unintelligible or figurative, and its complete ‘“‘other-worldliness.” 
Some slight play in the interpretation of prophetic detail is permitted 
to Adventist theologians, but on the whole the system stands or falls 
according to the correctness of any one of a large number of abso- 
lutely specific doctrines, in which Adventism differs from traditional, 
orthodox Christianity. 

Adventists believe that there is irrefutable biblical proof for every 
one of their doctrines, and equally irrefutable disproof for every 
doctrine which disagrees with their own. They cannot admit the 
possibility of being mistaken on any important point. It is, there- 
fore, to them vital that every individual on the face of the globe shall 
have due opportunity to study their positions and decide for himself, 
thereby settling his own eternal destiny. Their propaganda is as 
earnest, urgent, insistent, and spectacular as they can make it, and 
is pushed along every practicable line. Their technique is admirable, 
and their success remarkable, considering their severe requirements. 
Their book-agents cover the world with ably edited, attractively 
printed literature in over two hundred languages. Their Bible- 
workers enter every home. A more subtle propaganda is carried on 
in their sanitariums which has won several notable converts to 
Adventism. 

Adventism is probably the most highly-organized denomina- 
tional system in the world. The heavy contributions levied on all 
members, together with the low salary-scale, make it possible to keep 
nearly one-tenth of the total membership in some form of direct, 
paid employment. The “General Conference” reaches out through 
a complete hierarchy of ‘Division,’ ‘Union Conference,” and 
“‘Conference”’ officers, and exercises an almost absolute control over 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 205 


the whole activities of the denomination. Every phase of the work— 
evangelical, medical, educational, social, Sabbath-school, and young 
people’s work—is guided by numerous traveling secretaries who go all 
over the world, inspiring and unifying the local and individual efforts 
and keeping everything “‘in line.”” All institutions are under the direct 
control of the organization, including colleges, printing houses, sani- 
tariums, etc. Even local church-buildings are owned by central 
corporations established for that purpose. As a fighting unit the 
Adventist body seems to be at least as thoroughly and minutely 
organized as was the Prussian army before the War. 

There is much astuteness in the higher control of Seventh-Day 
Adventism. Many of the general secretaries have not only been 
around the world repeatedly but have records of penetrating difficult 
regions which any globe-trotter might envy. An Adventist General 
Conference probably brings together a larger number of hardened 
world-travelers than a meeting of the National Geographic Society. 
Successful evangelists and administrators are constantly being moved 
half way across the world. At the close of the War several able 
German Adventists were brought to America and permanently 
placed here. Little opportunity is given for any leader to develop 
a strong, local, personal following. The majority of the Adventist 
membership is now outside of America, but this policy of traveling 
secretaries and constant shifting of men tends to promote a high 
degree of unity, which is further reinforced by the preponderant 
financial strength of the American membership. 

The Adventist body contains a reasonable proportion of educated 
persons, including several hundred regularly qualified physicians, 
university graduates, and a few well-known men and women. Mr. 
Heber Votau, inspector of federal prisons during the Harding ad- 
ministration, and his wife, President Harding’s sister, are both 
Adventists, having served for many years as Adventist missionaries 
in Rangoon. Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, a Women’s Christian Temperance 
Union evangelist of national reputation, was converted to Adventism 
at an Adventist sanitarium. Professor McCready Price is widely 
known in Fundamentalist circles as a competent geologist who 
utterly rejects evolutionary theory and proves the truth of the 
biblical story of the flood by the record of the rocks. Intelligent, 
well-informed Adventists find no difficulty in squaring the most 


206 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


up-to-date scientific facts with their theology, although they reject, 
out of hand, any theory which is incompatible with their fundamental 
beliefs. 

It would appear that the type of temperament to which Ad- 
ventism appeals is widely, although not uniformly, distributed. It is 
remarkable how the Adventist technique of propaganda has suc- 
ceeded under widely varying conditions, and how closely Adventists 
from different, far distant parts of the world, resemble each other. 
In the United States, Australia, and South Africa approximately 
one-tenth of one per cent of the population is Adventist. Canada, 
Germany, Scandinavia, and Rumania have been nearly as receptive 
of Adventist propaganda as America,—Great Britain, somewhat 
surprisingly, very much less so. There are fewer than five thousand 
Adventists in the British Isles. The Latin countries, perhaps by 
virtue of their severely practical, materialistic psychosis, have proved 
very refractory towards Adventist work, although it has been con- 
stantly and insistently carried on. China, Korea, South and East 
Africa, the Philippines, and the South American Indian populations 
have proved fertile soil for Adventism, and there is a strong Ad- 
ventist body in Russia. The very universality of their work with 
regard to territory is to Adventists one of the most convincing proofs 
of its divine origin. 

Adventism clashes sharply with evolution, with “paganized” 
Roman Catholicism—the ‘“‘beast”—and with decadent, Sunday- 
keeping Protestantism—the ‘Image to the Beast.” It believes in 
freedom of conscience; hence its opposition to Sunday-laws. It 
would oppose just as strongly laws to enforce Sabbath (Saturday) 
keeping. Adventists believe that, in spite of their strenuous efforts 
to the contrary, Sunday-laws will ultimately become universal and 
that the persecution of Adventists on this account will rival the 
manias of the middle-ages. Some Adventists have already been 
martyred for their faith. The Second Advent, Adventists believe, 
will rescue them in the nick of time from an intense, world-wide 
persecution. 

Many questions suggest themselves to the careful observer of 
this system, so full of sound, common sense and profound astuteness 
in its management, so fruitful of progress and material good works, 
yet so curious and seemingly irrational in some of its beliefs. What 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 207 


accounts for the success of a creed made up of doctrines, some of 
them archaic, others differing radically from all authoritative theo- 
logical interpretation? What moves its members to submit to heavy 
sacrifice of income and social standing, to inconvenient rites, and 
the giving up of most things which usually pass for pleasure and 
satisfaction? Why are their professional men willing to work for 
half wages? What leads their young people to forego common 
pleasures and opportunities for a severe, trying, ill-paid career? 
What explains the fact that this international denomination was 
able to carry on its ever-expanding mission program throughout the 
World War and during the post-war depression without serious 
pause while all other mission enterprises passed through drastic 
crises? And why does its membership increase, year after year, in 
spite of almost infinite obstacles, when many other evangelical 
denominations are losing ground? 

The Adventist answer is obvious: it is because their message is 
“true” while everything else is more or less false. It is because the 
definite, miraculous power of God is in their work. The world is 
bound for perdition—its culture, its science, its whole civilization 
shot through and through with Satanic deception. It will all perish 
in the very near future: only Adventism will survive and triumph. 

The observer can record the success of the movement, but it is 
not at all obvious to what extent this success is due to each of the 
many factors which go to make up Adventism. The scientist, of 
course, does not attempt to deal with the supernatural claim. But 
if it should prove possible to differentiate the practical from the 
mystical—the “‘method from the madness’’—the effort would be 
well worth while. 


III. METHOD oF INQUIRY 


An attempt was made to use a judicious combination of intro- 
spective and behavioristic methods. For a number of reasons the 
investigation can hardly be regarded as conclusive in every way, 
but as preliminary. Much of the evidence obtained was confidential, 
and cannot be stated in detail. Nor can all the details collected be 
given in this report. Only a limited part of the evidence can be con- 
sidered directly cogent to the problem studied. A certain element 
of personal judgment has necessarily entered into the conclusions 


208 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


reached, and it may not always be easy for the reader to see the 
connection between the evidence and the conclusion. But an effort 
has been made to present sufficient material to justify the main 
results stated. It is hoped that the experience gained in this effort 
will make it possible to carry out further investigations with more 
concentration and less waste of machinery and on a sounder basis 
of scientific control. 

The investigation was begun by interviewing a number of Ad- 
ventist members (112 lay-members, 54 ministers, and 17 institutional 
workers) and 23 college-graduates who had been raised as Adventists 
but had left the denomination. Some of the questions asked were for 
information, both statistical and introspective, and some for the 
indirect behavioristic reaction they would produce. 

It was not anticipated that much useful information would be 
obtained from typical Adventists who were following what had been 
conceived to be a normal Adventist career, who fully believed every 
item of Adventist doctrine, were fully in sympathy with all Adventist 
methods and ideals, had always been faithful in all the duties and 
practices enjoined by Adventism, and had never suffered a ruffling 
of their experience by any untoward accident. The attempted 
introspections of such characters usually consist of stock verbalisms, 
and their behavioristic reactions are likely to be stereotyped. 

A rather surprising result of this inquiry was that there seem to 
be few typical, normal Adventists. In every case where anything like 
a full, confidential account of experience could be obtained there had 
been some “‘rift in the lute,”’ some grievance, some misunderstanding, 
some disappointment, some personal reservation over this or that 
particular point of Adventism, or some unfortunate accident which 
had proved a “great trial.’”” In other words Adventists, like other 
people, are all human. Returned missionaries had been dropped for 
reasons they did not understand. Personal preferences or trivial in- 
discretions had thrown ministers out of denominational employment. 
Local church-members had been thwarted in their just ambitions for 
church-office. Parents were grieved because their children, educated 
in Adventist schools, had failed to obtain denominational employ- 
ment and had therefore ‘drifted out of the Truth.” 

The important point is that Adventism is probably no more free 
from personal difficulties, local scandals, administrative cabals, etc., 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 209 


than other organizations. Its unique success is not due to any 
marked, average, individual superiority in the characters of its 
members. The solid, imposing front presented by Adventism to the 
world at large must be accounted for in some other way. 

Pressed for an explanation of their loyalty in the face of dis- 
couragements nearly every Adventist interviewed gave as his motive 
a firm, unalterable belief in the fundamental truth of Adventism. 
“The Truth would triumph,” they maintained, in spite of the weak- 
ness, intrigue, or even definite wickedness on the part of Adventist 
members and leaders. Not even those who were nursing bitter 
personal grievances would admit for a moment the thought that 
Adventism itself might be mistaken. Their only hope of salvation 
was a desperate clinging to the system. ‘‘When the Truth really 
takes hold of a person,” was a not uncommon remark, ‘‘no human 
contact can shake him out of it.” 

Not more than three of the nearly two hundred personally inter- 
viewed would for a moment entertain the suggestion that their 
personal friendships in Adventism, their positions in Adventist 
institutions, or their merely external connections with the system 
had anything to do with their faithfulness to it. A few expressed 
admiration for certain leaders, but on the whole the emphasis is laid 
upon the personal relationship of the believer with God, and it is 
tacitly assumed that anyone who is in close personal touch with God 
will necessarily believe in Adventism, provided, of course, he 
has had the opportunity of knowing “‘the Truth.” Adventists are 
taught to believe the “Truth” and not pin their faith to any leader, 
however attractive. The remarkable loyalty of many Adventists, 
despite bitter disappointments, is a high tribute to the psychic effici- 
ency of this method. 

Adventist statistics confess to a considerable drift of membership 
through their ranks. The loss by defection seems to average about 
one-third of the gross gain. This is due in part, of course, to the very 
intensity of their propaganda which, with its spectacular attacks 
upon Protestantism and Catholicism alike, attracts many critically- 
minded malcontents who take up Adventism chiefly because it seems 
to be against everything else, remain in its ranks as trouble-makers 
for a little time, and then pass on to some other sect. It is rare, how- 
ever, that an Adventist who has become “thoroughly grounded” by 


210 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


years of contact with and activity within the system gives it up, 
whatever the provocation. 

While it is difficult to picture the typical Adventist lay-member, 
the task is relatively easy with the minister. Professional priesthood 
usually gives its possessor an outward vocational armor which it is 
hard to pierce. The Adventist ministers interviewed replied, for 
the most part, true to an almost invariable form. Not one would 
confess to even the slightest taint of ““Modernism.” ‘Higher criti- 
cism’’ was uniformly condemned as “Devilish deception.” Some 
differentiation could be made with regard to effective methods of 
work: a check-up of reports and careers seemed to show that the 
successful Adventist minister is the one who sticks close to the 
characteristic doctrines of Adventism, even if his work is pastoral 
and his flock is already very familiar with Adventist theology. 
Ministers who had allowed their minds and their sermons to wander 
away to social, political, or general moralistic subjects showed records 
of frequent transfer and indifferent success. Ministers who special- 
ized upon revivalist methods and the intense presentation of funda- 
mental, primitive Christianity showed a tendency to drift out of 
Adventism and join other movements. Emotional evangelism has 
only a limited place in Adventism. The common Christian doctrines 
of repentance, conversion, justification, salvation, etc., must be 
intimately interwoven by the Adventist preacher with the Seventh- 
Day Sabbath, the Second Advent, the prophecies, the “‘sanctuary 
question,’’ etc. This is no artificial union but is necessitated by the 
Adventist view of theology as a whole. 

Among some Adventist thinkers there has been recently a curious, 
perhaps subconscious, search for something like an orthodox justifica- 
tion for the movement in the construction of a kind of historical 
doctrinal succession covering the whole Christian era. Perhaps it is 
an unconscious substitute for the Roman and Anglican apostolic 
successions. Adventist historians have searched out the existence of 
obscure sects which have held this or that characteristic Adventist 
doctrine at some period of the middle ages. Adventists hold that 
these sects have been the true church of God throughout the era, 
from the time that primitive Christianity apostatized. Considerable 
research and erudition has been expended on this task, which goes to 
show that Adventism is not by any means a new thing, but simply 
the continuation of an age-long development of truth. 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 211 


As a further method of investigation a series of questionnaires 
was prepared, addressed to ministers, church-elders, foreign mission- 
aries, and lay-members. It was hoped that from these also both intro- 
spective and behavioristic data would be obtained, as well as statisti- 
cal evidence. 

The Seventh-Day Adventist General Conference Committee was 
approached regarding the best method of distributing these question- 
naries and obtaining the desired replies. It should be stated that 
this committee co-operated fully and most cordially with the enter- 
prise, although no definite statement was given regarding the use 
which would be made of the information obtained. ‘The lists of 
questions were submitted to the committee, together with a perfectly 
frank statement of the purpose of the investigation. No alterations 
of the questions were suggested by any member of the committee. 
“Let them have any information they want,” was the dictum of 
President W. A. Spicer, chief administrative officer of the denomina- 
tion. It was obvious from the outset of the negotiations that the 
Adventists had nothing to conceal, nor were in the least concerned 
over any type of publicity which might result from the inquiry. 
When the investigator explained that the success of Adventism had 
attracted some attention and the idea of the research was that it 
might be possible to differentiate Adventist technique from Adventist 
doctrine the only reaction was a tolerant smile from some of the 
committee-members. They knew, of course, the futility of such an 
inquiry, but were glad to be friendly towards honest study from any 
viewpoint and quite confident that no scrutiny nor dissection of 
any nature would discover anything to their disadvantage. 

The questionnaires were sent out from the Adventist head- 
quarters. Administrative officers throughout the organization were 
asked to see that the questionnaires were properly distributed. The 
great majority sent out were promptly returned, and gave every 
evidence of having been honestly and seriously filled out. They 
represent, of course, only a cross-section of Adventist opinion and 
statistical information, yet they were distributed throughout 
America and the statistical inferences drawn from them should be 
reasonably valid. Every recognition should be given to the whole- 
hearted co-operation of the denominational officials everywhere, with- 
out which the work would have been much more difficult and the 
results much less reliable. 


PANG) UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


In the offices of the General Conference every kind of statistical 
data was open to the investigator, including confidential reports on 
the financial condition of every institution connected with the 
denomination. It may be stated that the organization is very strong, 
financially. Its business is managed by competent men, its surplus 
funds are conservatively invested, its whole financial policy thor- 
oughly sound. An expert statistician is in charge of all reports and 
membership statistics, coming from thousands of churches and 
companies throughout the world, and these statistics are audited, 
cross-audited, and trial-balanced with the meticulous accuracy that 
characterizes bank-accountancy. 

For a number of reasons no doubt can be thrown upon the official 
statistics of Adventism. The personal sacrifices required of all mem- 
bers serve to eliminate insincere time-servers. The requirement that 
Conference Presidents, in order to be deemed efficient, must raise 
tithes and offerings to a fixed membership quota induces frequent 
and severe pruning out of all dead membership-timber. Adventist 
statistics are without doubt as reliable as statistics can be. 


IV. REPORT ON QUESTIONNAIRES * 


Only a general summary of the questionnaire-results can be given 
in this report. Some of the questions were merely ‘‘feelers,” ten- 
tatively put out to see if anything could be rationally deduced from 
the replies. Scattering, idiosyncratic replies must of necessity be ig- 
nored and only those analyzed which seem to have some clear sig- 
nificance. 


To the objection that only a small fraction of the Adventist 
membership was reached by the questionnaires it may be answered 
as follows: 


(a) The ‘Instructions to Conference Presidents” and to “Church 
Elders” (omitted for lack of space) show that an effort was made to 
obtain a representative selection of members of all types. Reference 
to the vocational analysis given below will show that this was 
accomplished. 


* The author will be glad to furnish copies of the questionnaires—which could not be 
printed for lack of space—to any who may desire to study in detail the method of investi- 
gation used in this research. 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 213 


(b) In order to check the validity of the proportional conclusions, 
preliminary analyses of the questionnaire-answers were made when 
less than half of the total number sent out had been received. These 
analyses were then compared with the final results. An examination 
of the table giving the results for the ‘‘Family reports’ (see below) 
shows that the differences did not in any significant case exceed ten 
per cent. As the final conclusions drawn are of a very general nature 
and are based on general tendencies only, the validity of the funda- 
mental data with regard to the conclusions can hardly be questioned. 

Family Reports: The reponse to this questionnaire was the least 
satisfactory, partly on account of the personal nature of the questions 
asked, and partly because the subjects had little notion of the object 
of the questionnaire. In many cases only very partial replies were 
given. Few of the Church Elders ventured the personal judgment 
asked for under “‘Remarks.” Most of the remarks given were 
laudatory, but quite a number complained that the member in 
question did not attend prayer-meeting! 

For convenience of comparison the preliminary and final analyses 
are given (Table I) side by side and marked (1) and (2) respectively. 
The ‘‘Percentages of Total’’ refer to the total number who reported 
on any given point and not to the entire total. 

Several interesting points may be deduced from this analysis: 


(Column 4). About half of the adults who accept Adventism come from evangelical 
churches, one sixth from the Roman Catholics, and one third from non-church-members. 
This is about the ratio of these classes in the population of America. 

(Column 5). The vocational analysis shows that a fairly representative cross-section 
of Adventist membership answered the questionnaire. 

(Column 7). The educational average of the membership which reported is very near— 
if anything, a little above—the average of the country as a whole. All but three of the 133 
members of college education had been trained in Adventist institutions. The significance 
of this is pointed out later. 

(Column 8). The children of Adventists account for about 40 percent of the total re- 
cruits to Adventism. Formal evangelical propaganda accounts for less than one fourth of 
Adventist growth. The large numbers coming from private study and the personal 
efforts of the Adventist membership (16 per cent and 17 percent respectively) are signifi- 
cant. The former quota is probably largely due to the very extensive Adventist book and 
tract work. 

(Column 9), The outstanding feature here is that the majority of Adventists consider 
the Sabbath as their most important doctrine. Even the Second Advent runs a very poor 
second. The somewhat different orientation of Seventh-Day Adventist ministers to these 
doctrines will be noted later. It should be stated that of the ninety-nine who referred to the 


UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


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MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 215 


“whole Truth” as most important, seventy-three were college-educated—i.e., the more in- 
telligent Adventists hesitated to select any one doctrine, but integrated the whole set of 
doctrines into a unified system. This more nearly approaches the ministerial attitude. 

(Column 10). It is highly significant that individual Bible-study is selected by the 
majority of Adventists as the most important influence in their lives. Even Sabbath- 
keeping—of prime importance as a doctrine—does not rival the Adventist’s own personal 
researches in the Bible. It will be pointed out later that the devotional or emotional aspects 
of religion are of secondary importance in Adventism. Every Adventist member is ex- 
pected to be intellectually independent—to be able to “give a reason for the faith within 
him.” 


Adventist thought is medieval in that it accepts certain funda- 
mental dogmata implicitly and explicitly, and then reasons with great 
acumen and sound logic upon this basis. This combination of “faith 
and reason” is, of course, unknown in modern philosophy. Many 
able religious debaters have discovered the difficulty of meeting 
Adventists if the Adventist premises—which are the “fundamentals” 
of traditional Protestantism—are accepted. 

Conversation with members who were converted to Adventism 
after reaching maturity indicates that such an experience is a pro- 
found psychological crisis. Adventist methods of propaganda appeal 
alike to the zealous church-member, the self-satisfied Pharisee, and 
the ‘“‘worldling” of indefinite practice and conviction. The first 
interest may be aroused by a spectacular, prophetic announcement. 
Something akin to alarm follows when it is discovered that the 
“coming of the Lord” is “near, even at the door,” and will bring with 
it sudden destruction for the unprepared. Follows a vivid, insistent 
presentation of an extraordinary but astonishingly consistent and 
well-knit set of doctrines, the “Truth,” the only complete, final truth 
for “this generation.”” Any effect of salesmanship is quashed by the 
severe conditions imposed, yet these are almost taken for granted 
when the full nature of the triumphant experience and final reward 
is revealed. The majority, of course, ‘‘fall out by the way,” for 
“many are called but few are chosen.”’ But those who survive 
‘presently settle down into a new mode of life in which many of the 
former influences are almost entirely shut out, and are gradually 
fortified in the faith. The new member gives up smoking, drinking, 
card-playing, movie-and-theater-going, deserts his lodge, works on 

' Sunday and goes to church on Saturday, keeps away from meals 
where pork or rabbit is likely to be served, and loses most of his 


216 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


former connections. If he has any spiritual ambition he becomes an 
ardent propagandist, and spends his spare time distributing Ad- 
ventist literature. His break from the past is so complete and spec- 
tacular that it is not easy to return. Adventists pride themselves on 
being a “peculiar people,” set apart by divine providence for a 
special work, and are not at all ashamed to be thought of as distinctly 
different from other people. It is very difficult for an Adventist who 
has gone through the poignant emotional crisis involved in conversion 
to deny or give up that experience. 

Ministerial Questionnaires: Seventy-two ministers replied to this 
questionnaire. Their replies to individual questions are discussed in 
the numerical order of the questions: 

On a question as to what Adventist doctrines are most effective 
in arousing interest of non-Adventists, over half (41) gave the 
“Prophecies.”’ Of the remainder, 23 cited the related subject of the 
Second Advent. This seems to be standard Adventist technique. 
The idea that a study of the Biblical prophecies will furnish a reliable 
forecast of future events is attractive to a large number of people. 
From those who come at the first call the Adventist workers are able 
to hold a small proportion who will accept the whole “Message.” 
The Adventist purpose is to warn everybody—give every one his 
chance—which fully justifies the wide scattering of their efforts. 
Adventism is a special message, and its propaganda depends little, 
if at all, upon presentations of the doctrines common to all sects of 
Christians. 

In answer to a question on the most important doctrines in finally 
converting people to Adventism the replies were scattered. Thirteen 
ministers chose the Sabbath as the clinching, or test doctrine. Eleven 
cited the “‘life of Christ,”’ ten the “‘“Second Advent,” nine the “Atone- 
ment,” six the “Judgment,” and five the ‘‘complete Truth.” Ad- 
ventist preachers make effective use of revivalist methods and the 
common doctrines of Christianity in “bringing out’’ those who have 
become interested. 

As the most potent means of holding members for Adventism, 
thirty-three ministers relied chiefly upon keeping church-members 
busy with personal efforts for others. This, of course, is sound 
psychology, however it may speak for the fundamental truth of 
Adventism. Eleven cited interest in foreign missions, eight “health- 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 217 


reform,” three family worship, and only two “preaching.” This 
latter is negatively significant: Adventists seem to regard preaching 
as chiefly valuable as a propagandist method. Many of the smaller 
companies are without regular preachers. While sermons are 
preached every Sabbath in the Adventist churches, this spiritual 
exercise occupies relatively an unimportant place in the lives of 
Adventist members. The majority of Adventist ministers spend but a 
small proportion of their time in pastoral work. 

There was an almost unanimous agreement that material diffi- 
culties are the only important factor in preventing those who have 
become acquainted with Adventism from obeying it. Twenty-three 
listed the difficulty of finding Sabbath-free employment, sixteen the 
inconvenience of Sabbath-keeping, fifteen the “high standards” 
(i.e., no smoking, drinking, pork-eating, etc.), eight the loss of social 
standing, as serious difficulties. The most important inference from 
these replies is the assumption, by the Adventist ministers, that it 
is almost impossible for any one to expose himself to a complete 
presentation of Adventist doctrine without being convinced of its 
truth. Only material, personal difficulties, complicated by lack of 
faith, will prevent him from accepting Adventism. 

In reply to a question asking what doctrines seem to drive away 
individuals who had become interested, most of the replies denied 
that any Adventist doctrines drive away those who have candidly 
considered the whole “‘Message.”’ A few referred to the difficulty of 
obtaining Sabbath-free employment, but hastened to add that this 
had never proved a real obstacle to those who had made reasonable 
efforts to find work. Adventists firmly believe that Providence will 
“open up the way” for any who “step out by faith” and start 
“keeping the Sabbath” without any promise of employment. They 
hardly expect any real miracle to be worked until the individual 
shows unquestioning faith and willingness to obey. They can cite 
numerous astonishing coincidences or quasi-miraculous interpositions 
in favor of hard-pressed Sabbath-keepers. 

Personal and material factors were unanimously cited as causes 
of any apostacy. ‘‘Worldly attractions” (28), “lack of Bible-study” 
(11), ‘lack of prayer” (8), ‘‘money troubles” (5), ‘“marriage to un- 
believers” (4), and “‘jealousy of leaders’’ (3) were the chief factors 
listed. There was no suggestion that Adventists ever apostatize 


218 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


because they are won by other systems or are convinced that Ad- 
ventism is untrue. Personal weakness of character, yielding to temp- 
tation, loss of interest, personal grievances, or other causes entirely 
unconnected with intellectual conviction are the only causes listed. 

A question asking for the strongest influence in keeping people 
faithful to Adventism attracted considerable somewhat heated 
attention. Forty-eight of the reporting ministers underlined “firm 
conviction of the truth of the Message”’ as the outstanding factor, 
and nearly half of these wrote explanatory paragraphs or theses 
emphasizing their answers. Twenty-two cited “hope of eternal life.” 
This theme also was amplified by a number, stating their firm belief 
that their only hope of salvation lay in remaining ‘‘true to the 
Message.” Five ministers referred to Seventh-Day Adventism as 
the ‘‘everlasting gospel” while one called it the “whole Bible and 
nothing but the Bible.’ Only one minister admitted that personal 
loyalty to the system or to friends who are Adventists might have 
anything to do with faithfulness to the Adventist system, and many 
heavily scored out this suggestion, a few with strong expressions of 
repudiation. 

While it proved difficult to describe a typical Adventist lay- 
member the general picture of the typical minister seems to stand 
out clearly. Contrary to the present vogue of Protestant ministers 
the Adventist preacher nearly always believes completely and quite 
sincerely the ‘‘whole Truth.” Of average intellectual ability, his 
formal education is usually below college graduation. He is very 
familiar with the Bible per se, but has almost no first-hand knowledge 
of the methods or findings of modern scholarship about the Bible. 
He proves all his doctrinal points by the Bible and has neat, for the 
most part plausible, explanations for all ‘‘difficult” texts. He does 
not often think beyond the confines of the Adventist theological 
system. Those who do, frequently “get off the track” and wander 
into serious difficulties. If he finds “new light” he must submit it 
to the General Conference Committee. If it is accepted, well and 
good; if not, then he must keep it to himself, as far as public presenta- 
tion is concerned, or give up his ministry. In an effort that is attack- 
ing the whole world and expects to reach it in “this generation” 
denominational unity is far more important than minor theological 
discrepancies. 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 219 


The average Adventist minister is chiefly a well-armed propa- 
gandist, out on the firing-line. His faith in the mission and destiny 
of Adventism is so complete that he can hardly avoid an attitude of 
calm superiority when he comes into contact with other Bible- 
students. Many who have been attracted to Adventism by the 
admirable spirit and conduct of Adventists have been exasperated 
and repelled by the impossibility of coming to intellectual grips with 
Adventist ministers. The Adventist minister simply presents his 
carefully prepared answers to all questions and difficulties and the 
listener can take it or leave it. If he fails to be convinced, that is his 
misfortune. Adventists were once great debaters, but of late have 
largely given it up, not because they failed to win points against 
the inconsistencies of other faiths but because they discovered that 
few desirable converts were made by such methods. It is the duty 
of Adventism to present its case to all the world and give every one 
his chance. Those who do not avail themselves of the opportunity 
have only themselves to blame. There is no use arguing about it. 

There is no “liberal” branch of Adventism. The very few “‘mod- 
ernists” in the Adventist ranks keep very quiet about their beliefs. 
The official and actual attitude of Adventism towards ‘‘modern- 
ism’’ is quite unequivocal. The Bible is inspired, and everything 
which will not square with that dogma is rejected out of hand as 
“Satanic delusion.” There is, among Adventists, an intelligent 
recognition of proved facts, but these must be harmonized with 
“Revelation.”’ Adventists do not pretend to understand everything 
but they firmly believe that all facts, if sufficiently well understood, 
would confirm rather than contradict the fundamental doctrines of 
Adventism. 

But they have little confidence in any conclusions the human 
mind may reach unless it is aided by higher powers. “The heart is 
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked’’—in other words, 
the human mind is not to be trusted. 

Adventists believe that the modern world is making a fatal 
blunder in trying to ignore the Devil. Satan and evil are just as real 
to them as God and righteousness. The history of this world is to 
them a “Great Controversy between Christ and Satan’’ (the title 
of one of Mrs. Ellen G. White’s volumes) with the children of men 
as pawns in the game. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of 


220 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 
wisdom,” and any line of thought which is not based a priori on 
the dogma of biblical infallibility is desperately dangerous. The 
thinker who tries to free his mind from all preconceptions is ignoring 
the inevitable bias of satanic influence—sometimes called “‘original 
sin” — and is tempting God. At the very outset he is giving his mind 
over to the Devil, who then beclouds his understanding and can 
get him to believe—or disbelieve—anything. Only as it is guided 
by the “spirit of God” can any human intellect hope to think 
rationally. 

All pure philosophy would seem, from the Adventist viewpoint, 
to be a kind of unconscious devil-worship. “Truth” is not a matter 
of pure reason, but of faith. Faith is the “gift of God,” and woe to 
the man who tampers with this gift by trying to think on his own 
or decide any question with his own unaided judgment! Still more 
woe to him if he ventures to ask any irreverent questions! His mind 
will wander into darkness. He is likely to fall into some one of the 
numerous intellectual manias—a modern euphemism for being 
“possessed of a devil’—from which he can be rescued only by some 
mighty miracle. It can hardly be denied that there is a convincing 
logic in the Adventist position if the inherent weakness and “‘original 
sin’ of the human race is admitted. 

On the other hand, Adventists fully recognize the achievements 
of modern science. They constitute one of the chief prophetic signs 
of the “end.” “Knowledge shall be increased and many shall run 
to and fro.’® Modern scientific progress has been made in the 
providence of God, primarily to help Adventists warn the world. 
They are proud that their missionaries and literature have already 
traveled by aeroplane to regions otherwise difficultly accessible. 
The ‘‘increase of knowledge’”’ is one of the chief signs of the times. 
Adventist ministers revel among the magnificent distances of modern 
astronomy. The miracles of Joshua and Hezekiah? are only the more 
stupendous when it is realized that every law of energy and inertia 
must have been temporarily suspended to make them possible. 
Adventists confidently expect, in the very near future, to travel 
through the curious hiatus in the great nebula of Orion on their way 


6 Dan. 12, 1, et seq. 
7 Dan. 12, 4. 
8 Joshua 10, 12; 2nd Kings 20, 9. 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 221 


to Heaven immediately after the Second Advent. That they will 
have to travel several thousand times the velocity of light in order 
to cover this distance within the seven days prescribed only makes 
the experience the more remarkable. The Adventists deny no fact 
of science: apparent discrepancies are only more mighty miracles. 
“Everything is possible (no matter how improbable) with God.” 

To the Adventist minister, as well as to the layman, there is 
simply no comparison between any other religion and his own. It 
has usually come to him as a great revelation, opening up his mind 
to undreamed-of realms of glory and triumph. The price is high, but 
insignificant compared with the reward. Like Bunyan’s pilgrim he 
cries, “‘life, life, eternal life!’ and resolutely stops his ears to any 
disturbing call of the world, of business, of family interference, or of 
intellectual doubt. He has a more satisfying swmmum bonum than 
any philosopher ever imagined. He may weep over the lost world— 
for he is still human—and over his own lost relatives; but the certain 
salvation of his own soul is ever clearly before him, and will repay 
a thousand times any petty loss or discomfort in this world. He has 
no notion of the attitude of Moses who handed the Lord an ulti- 
matum, requesting that his own name be blotted out of the ‘‘Book”’ 
if Israel was to be rejected.? He cannot imagine any satisfaction ina 
philosophy which would acquiesce in personal extinction if it were 
part of a greater, higher plan of development. He has, not a material, 
but a sublimated spiritual selfishness which transcends every earthly 
relationship. His duty to God, of which his duty to man is but a small 
part, is above every other consideration. He will be a docile citizen, 
but from purely secondary motives. He will be as good a husband 
and father as he can, but by command of God. His duty to the 
“Work” transcends every other consideration and the recommenda- 
tion of the ‘General Conference Committee”’ is to him the “voice of 
God on earth.” 

In their earlier, sometimes ill-prepared mission efforts, Adventist 
missionaries not infrequently fell at their posts for lack of local 
knowledge or inadequate home-support;—probably every mission 
enterprise has passed through a similar stage. At a lone station one 
missionary died and the other lost his wife. The survivors promptly 
married, for convenience, and “‘carried on the Work.”’ The Adventist 


9 Exodus 32, 32. 


222 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


mission-work is now well-equipped and adequately supported, and 
perhaps it is hardly fair to suggest that economy and efficiency, 
rather than any sentimental humanitarianism, are the chief motives 
back of this provision; yet in reading Adventist mission history one 
cannot miss the impression of the supreme importance of the 
“Work.” It is not uncommon for a missionary to lose his wife at 
some pest-ridden station, return to America just long enough to get 
another, and then go back to his dangerous “‘field.””, One Adventist 
Conference President boasted that he had raised forty thousand 
dollars from the farmers of a western state on the strength of the 
pitiful death and burial of a missionary’s wife at sea. Adventism 
considers the death of missionaries on the world-battle-field a 
thousand times more justifiable than the sacrifice of soldiers in war, 
and while they weep in human sorrow over the loss of friends and 
relatives they calmly send recruits to the most forlorn posts. 

Any study of Adventism must emphasize its ‘‘other-worldliness.”’ 
Not all Adventists, of course, fully reach the transcendental plane 
of the Adventist ideal, but it is constantly and insistently held before 
them and they are taught that Christ cannot come until every true 
Adventist reaches a state of sinless perfection and is able to stand 
before a stern, righteous God without the intermediation of Christ, 
the Intercessor. 

Adventism is almost as different from conventional, modern, 
socially-minded Protestantism as was primitive Christianity from 
the enlightened philosophy of the early Christian era. Adventism 
is chiefly motivated by a sure expectation of Christ’s early return. 
Like Paul, who so confidently wrote ‘“‘We who are alive,” Adventists 
expect, very soon, to be literally “‘caught up in the air’ and to be 
“forever with the Lord.”!° Probably the most poignant wish of 
ageing Adventists is to “live until the Lord comes.” 

While the Adventists do not believe that ‘‘millions now living 
will never die,” the younger generation is confidently taught not to 
expect death, if it is faithful. As time passes—it is now eighty years 
since the first preaching that the “Lord will come in this generation” 
—there is a natural dimming of the first inspiring vision, but not 
yet can it be said of Adventism that “hope deferred maketh the 


10 First Thessalonians 4, 15. 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 223 


heart sick.”” They preserve to a high degree the fervid confidence of 
their fathers in the faith. 

This world means very little to Adventists. The great work to 
be done in the world is merely preparatory to another world, about 
to dawn. The “shortness of time,”’ the near impending doom of the 
whole human race, the immensity of the task which has been assigned 
to Adventism—these seem to constitute a psychic incentive of tre- 
mendous potency. 

Now that their work has assumed respectable international pro- 
portions some of their assumptions are not at all presumptuous, but 
there was a touch of sublimity in the confidence with which, more 
than a generation ago, they went out to conquer the world. Witha 
score of workers and a few hundred members in England they boldly 
organized the ‘British Union Conference.” Almost every other 
country has been entered and ‘‘possessed” with this Abraham-like 
faith, and materially this faith has often been justified by the build- 
ing up of solid organizations, many of them now self-supporting and 
contributing liberally to the general missionary effort. 

Foreign Missionary Questionnaire: These answers, more than any 
other, breathed a spirit of intense enthusiasm for specific Seventh- 
Day Adventism. An occasional lapse into “‘pidgeon-English” did 
not at all detract from their vivid poignancy. Again, answers of 
those questioned are taken up in order. 

It is evident from answers received that most of the missionaries 
believe that evangelical work should precede other lines of missionary 
endeavor. A few mentioned health-work and two colportage—none 
educational work. The ‘‘third angel’s Message”’ is the “important 
thing,” and will ‘“‘do its own preparation.” 

As might have been expected, there was unanimous agreement 
that the teaching of distinctive Adventist doctrines was vital to the 
social and industrial success which has attended Adventist mission- 
work. “It is not sufficient that converts be mere professed Chris- 
tians,”’ wrote one. ‘‘That has often been tried, and has always failed. 
They must be Seventh-Day Adventists.” “If they are real Chris- 
tians,”’ wrote another, ‘‘they will be Adventists.” “The whole 
enterprise would collapse,” wrote another, “without the doctrinal 
foundation.” 

Various answers were given to a question which concerned the 


224 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


importance of Adventist doctrines as compared with other systems 
in the training of natives, socially, industrially, and ethically. This 
question was intentionally provocative. Some even challenged the 
suggestion. Some blamed certain types of missionaries for encourag- 
ing natives to resist the injustice of colonial governments. Adventist 
missionaries are taught to be exceedingly careful not to antagonize 
governments of any kind. Others regarded the influence of non- 
Christian travelers and business-men as particularly pernicious. 
Perhaps the most helpful suggestion was that a Christian education, 
teaching the equality of all men before God, together with the in- 
creased intelligence which follows education, gave the natives a sense 
of independence which rendered them less docile to the exploitation 
of colonial adventurers. 

Most of the missionaries felt that they had received a direct 
divine call to mission-work. A few confessed that their own ardent 
desire had played a part in their calling. 

Many wrote enthusiastically that their anticipations had been 
more than fulfilled. They confessed to disappointments, but not to 
disillusionment. They had not accomplished all that had been hoped, 
and lack of means and help had often been grievous hindrances to 
success; yet the “‘joy of service’ had amply repaid them for these 
disappointments. 

Very few confessed to any important change of outlook as a result 
of mission experience. One missionary writing from China suggested 
that more responsibility might be placed upon native members and 
workers. This is merely a faint echo of general mission developments 
in China. 

The majority of missionaries thought that spiritual, cultural, 
and industrial training should go hand in hand. 

Almost unanimously the missionaries denied any discouraging 
effect of Adventist doctrines. ‘‘Truly converted” natives are too 
enthusiastic to be disheartened by even the severest personal re- 
strictions. One missionary defined Christianity as ‘individual, per- 
sonal contact with God, and the native who attains this is above 
discouragement.” Knowledge and acceptance of Seventh-Day 
Adventism is a necessary prerequisite of this attainment. 

A question on causes of apostacy brought a long list: insufficient 
training, critical attitude towards leaders, jealousy, disappointment 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 225 


in the expectation to be made paid workers, worldly temptations, 
failure in regular Bible-study, succumbing to temptation to smoke, 
drink, commit adultery, etc. Failure to live up to Adventist stan- 
dards means disfellowshipment in mission as well as in home lands. 

The general picture of the Adventist foreign missionary seems 
fairly clear. He usually has a higher degree of enthusiasm than his 
brother-minister at home. He has made even greater sacrifices for 
Adventism. He is no less intensely and passionately devoted to 
Adventism, per se, believing it to be the only valid form of Christi- 
anity, the particular and peculiar ‘‘work of God”’ in the world today. 
Years of service in foreign fields do not greatly modify his original 
attitude. He does not seem to visualize himself at all clearly as part 
of the great, general mission effort of Christianity against heathen- 
dom and Mohammedanism—in the latter case often a losing battle. 
He meets other missionaries, but his cooperation with them is limited. 
Their work may be good, but at best is only preparatory to his own. 
He can make no agreements with them regarding territory, but goes 
wherever he can find or make an “opening.” He “steals the con- 
verts’’!! of other missionaries without the slightest compunctions and 
will proselyte the missionaries themselves if he can, for he considers 
them all to be in dire need of his message. The social and ethical con- 
comitants of his work, however excellent, are all secondary to the 
main object, which is to make Adventists. Mission work as a mere 
civilizing factor would not be worth a flip of his attention. 

Yet Adventist mission work is, for the most part, highly esteemed 
by colonial authorities. Employers will often put up with the in- 
convenience of Sabbath-keeping natives because of the excellence 
of their service. A native workman who will neither drink nor 
commit adultery on any provocation is something of a prize in 
Africa. However unimportant the Adventists may regard the ethical 
aspect of their work, its excellence is undoubted. 

Church-Elder Questionnaire: The majority of church-elders 
answered only the statistical part of the questionnaire, and in many 
cases even these replies were vague and general, rather than numeri- 
cal. One or two interesting points can be gathered from the figures 
collected. 

Of 1,083 Adventist children educated in Adventist schools, only 


1 This phrase is quoted verbatim from the complaint of a non-Adventist mission-report. 


226 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


111, or about 10 per cent, left Adventism within two years of finishing 
their school-education. Of 157 Adventist children educated in secular 
school 99, or about 60 per cent, apostatized from Adventism within 
two years of leaving school. This number includes 47 who were never 
baptized into Adventism. Adventist schools are thus revealed as a 
powerful method of keeping Adventist children within the fold. 
This result seems to be contrary to the experience of the Roman 
Catholic Church with its parochial schools, if some recently published 
articles on this subject are to be credited. 

A careful, personal canvass was made of 23 cases of erstwhile 
Adventist young people who had “‘given up the Truth.” Nine of 
these treated the matter lightly, were evidently persons of a shallow 
disposition, professed no firm conviction for anything, but thought 
Adventists “‘no better than other people.” Seven of the twenty- 
three had been educated in non-Adventist colleges and professed a 
serious conviction that Adventism could not be true. Three betrayed 
the fact that personal grievances had offended them, and “did not 
believe that such people could have the right religion.”” Not one of 
the twenty-three, however, had joined any other denomination. 

Three Adventist ministers were asked to comment on the sig- 
nificance of the influence of education on Adventist children, and the 
suggestion that there must be some weakness in the doctrinal system 
if it cannot survive a non-sectarian education. Two of these ministers 
explained that the whole system of modern education was shot 
through and through with ‘“‘Satanic deceptions” and no immature 
mind could possibly hope to expose itself to such a system without 
complete demoralization. The third minister held that Adventists 
had the right to educate their own children as they pleased. He 
admitted the point to the original contention, but the ‘‘work of God” 
needed workers, and Providence ordained that a certain number of 
children should be born and educated as Adventists to carry on that 
work. 

Tithe-Paying: Adventists believe that faithfulness in tithe- 
paying will be rewarded by material blessing. Of 119 members over 
sixty-five years of age reported ‘‘dependent” only two had been 
faithful tithe-payers while in business. Of 342 Adventists in business 
on their own account only eight were reported to have failed during 
the past seven years, and not one of these had been a regular tithe- 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 227 


payer. Of the 334 successful business men, 318 were known to be 
faithful tithe-payers. Adventist ministers admit that non-tithe- 
payers may be successful in business and that a shiftless tithe-payer 
may fail. But they have a number of well-authenticated instances 
- in which pests or pestilences, sweeping over farming districts, have 
left the crops or cattle of tithe-paying Adventists miraculously un- 
scathed. 

These data illustrate the kind of direct, providential inter- 
positions which Adventists confidently expect to be exercised on 
their behalf. Miraculous healings are frequent among them. ‘The 
Hand that Intervenes,” by the President of the General Conference, 
records many astonishing coincidences and miracles in connection 
with Adventist mission work. 


V. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 


The results of a scientific research are not bound to please any 
one. The truth of Adventist theology is not the question under 
examination in this investigation. The descriptive evidence is in- 
tended to show that Adventism presents a high, almost unique, yet 
thoroughly practical and materially successful type of altruistic 
conduct, on a very considerable and continually expanding scale. 
The examination of the beliefs, motives, and methods of Adventism 
is an attempt to provide the material for a judgment of the causes 
of this conduct. A considerable proportion of the material success 
attending the Adventist enterprise can be accounted for by an or- 
ganizational efficiency both comprehensive and minute, their intense 
enthusiasms for service and sacrifice and their zeal for propaganda 
can not. Every line of inquiry, statistical, introspective, and be- 
havioristic, leads to the conclusion that it is their intense, unfaltering 
belief in the absolute truth of their doctrines which motivates their 
activities. 

Other altruistic organizations might profit by an intensive study 
of their organization and methods. They have perfected a technique 
of high effectiveness. But the main conclusion remains clear: it 
would not be possible to detach the distinctive Adventist doctrines 
from Adventism without wrecking the movement. 

What changes in human motivation future evolution may effect 
can hardly be guessed, but it seems very clear at present that the 


228 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


average human being will not exert himself heroically or even 
earnestly in the service of mankind without the aid of some potent 
psychic stimulus. Here and there are rare spirits who will sacrifice 
themselves on the altar of service from pure, unmotivated, philo- 
sophical altruism. Education has no methods, as yet, of producing 
such characters if indeed education can ‘‘produce” anything. Pure 
knowledge is not a motivator. The genial, agnostic philosopher 
rarely sacrifices any item of comfort, pleasure or convenience for the 
good of mankind. The philanthropist must be possessed by a burning 
zeal for some particular type of service. Without this he will be a 
luke-warm, Jaissez-faire well-wisher, but no doer. And the masses 
must have, in business slogans, in religion dogmata. They must 
believe their dogmata utterly, without the shadow of a doubt, and 
the dogmata must be direct, definite, and explicit. 

Another inevitable conclusion is the supreme effectiveness of 
“‘other-worldliness” as a motive for altruistic conduct. In this 
respect the Adventists merely confirm conclusions already drawn 
from the history of other religions. Early Christians and later re- 
formers died cheerfully in the sure hope of salvation. Countless 
Moslems perished gloriously on the battle-field with the promise of 
paradise before their eyes. As modern religion has receded from the 
bliss of Heaven and the miseries of Hell its vigor has diminished. 
The altruistic philosophy of the Antonines, however humane and 
enlightened, could not stand before a crude, superstitious, but 
vigorous Christianity. Modern Protestantism bids fair to share the 
fate of ancient philosophy. Social service and reform are poor sub- 
stitutes for the promise of eternal bliss in a new world which is ‘‘even 
at the door.” 

The enthusiasm of Adventists is all the more remarkable in view 
of their profound pessimism regarding the future of this world. ‘“‘Yet 
forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed’; and Adventists do 
not admit any possibility of the remission of the sentence. Far from 
preaching that ‘‘millions now living will never die,’ Adventism 
teaches that the great majority now living will perish miserably, en 
masse, in the destruction of the Second Advent. Fate’s experiment 
with the earth is a proved failure, save for a few chosen ones, 
“plucked as brands from the burning.”’ Every uplift or reform move- 


“Jonah 3, 4. 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 229 


ment in the world, except Adventism, is doomed to early failure. 
The world is destined to grow rapidly worse, in spite of every effort, 
until God, in righteous wrath, destroys it. All that the best and 
noblest can hope to do is to save themselves from the universal ruin 
and perhaps persuade a few others to come with them. Yet this 
desperate philosophy has bred a type of altruistic effort almost 
unique in massed zeal, vigor, and intensiveness, highly charged with 
enthusiasm and showing great practical effectiveness. 

Several authorities have ventured to predict the future of Ad- 
ventism. A German encyclopaedist!® forecasts the growth of the 
denomination to considerable numbers before the original impulse 
subsides and the movement settles down to a conventional, con- 
servative denomination, having shed its most extreme features. 
Time and experience are already modifying some of these. While 
opposing life-insurance, Adventists insure their institutions against 
fire. In spite of the imminent nearness of the ‘‘end’”’ new Adventist 
institutions are constantly going up, solid and fire-proof in construc- 
tion and financed for long periods of time. Theoretically these are 
all doomed to early destruction, being merely temporary tools for 
“finishing the Work.’”’ The Review and Herald recently executed a 
skillful retreat from the more rigid interpretation of the “this genera- 
tion” doctrine which was formerly held and had been the basis of 
thousands of impassioned sermons in which it was relentlessly cal- 
culated that the ‘“‘end”’ could not possibly be delayed for more than a 
“‘very few years.”’ Fifty years of constant use has dulled the edge of 
this once so powerful doctrine. A recent authoritative statement of 
belief! omits all mention of the “spirit of prophecy”’ (belief in the 
inspiration of Mrs. Ellen G. White’s writings) formerly also a strong 
point. Time changes all things. 

Measured by any conceivable quantitative rule of virtue Adven- 
tism manifests a high degree of altruism. Adventists doubtless consti- 
tute a considerable proportion of the “salt of the earth,’ i.e., the moral 
conservatists which retard the putrefaction of society. If the Ad- 
ventists are correct in their beliefs there is, of course, no hope for 
those who cannot accept what seem to them to be utterly irrational 
doctrines. If, on the other hand, Adventism has, like early Christi- 


18 Meyers Konversationslexicon, 7th edition, Article ‘‘Adventisten.” 
M4 Signs of the Times, Vol. 54, No. 19. 


230 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


anity, the germ of something better and higher which will ultimately 
raise our decaying civilization to a loftier plain, the sooner we can 
recognize and avail ourselves of these principles, the better. Whether 
any effective substitute for rigid dogmatism and ‘‘other-worldliness” 
will ever be found cannot be stated now; in the meantime it must be 
admitted that these are without near rivals as motives for intensive, 
aggressive, practical altruistic conduct on a large scale. 

Many minor inferences are suggested by the data of this research. 
Among other things, it seems that the practical altruist must be 
possessed by a kind of “divine egotism,” a conviction that what he 
has to offer is so overwhelmingly and patently superior to anything 
else in the world that no one who will pause long enough to consider 
it will be able to refuse it. A severe code of personal conduct is more 
effective and more attractive to individuals capable of altruistic 
effort than a liberal system of morality. 

The possibility of a rational application to social training of these 
ideas—which in themselves are not new—and methods of applying 
them to educational technique should be subjects of future research. 
Even a moderate degree of success in such an attempt would change 
the face of the world. 


VI. Summary 


In the attempt to find some basis for a statistical study of the 
motivation of altruism the Seventh Day Adventist denomination 
was chosen as an example for investigation because: (a) It manifests 
a type of mass-altruism which is very intense and unique in many 
respects; (b) Its doctrines and practices differ so distinctly from 
anything else that it seemed promising to attempt a correlation of 
these characteristics with the altruistic results manifested. The 
investigation was conducted by means of numerous personal inter- 
views with Adventists of various types and by over two thousand 
questionnaires. 

The two chief factors in the success of Adventism seem to be 
(1) An intense belief by practically all Adventists of the absolute, 
complete truth of every item of Adventist doctrine; (2) A strong 
sure faith of eternal life and an ‘“‘other-worldly”’ reward to those who 
remain specifically true to Adventism. More generally it is concluded 
that a firm belief in specific, explicit dogmata and a confident expec- 


MOTIVATION OF ALTRUISM 231 


tation of abundant definite rewards are still the essential conditions 
of anything like mass-altruism. 


VII. BrsrioGRaPHy 


Official histories of the Seventh-Day Adventism are: The Rise and Progress of Seventh 
Day Adventism, \ater revised under the title The Great Second Advent Movement, both by 
J. N. Loughborough, The Story of the Advent Message, by Matilda Ericson Andross, and 
The Origin and Progress of Seventh-Day Adventism, by Dr. M. E. Olsen. These works are 
all published by the Review and Herald Publishing Co., of Takoma Park, Washington, D.C. 
Dr. Olsen’s work is authoritative. 

The historical justification of Adventism was most ambitiously attempted by J. N. 
Andrews in his History of the Sabbath (Review and Herald Publishing Co., 1887) more 
recently revised and enlarged by L. R. Conradi (International traktatgesellschaft, Hamburg, 
Germany, 1921). Pastor Conradi has followed up this work in his Das Goldene Zeittalter 
(International traktatgesellschaft, Hamburg, Germany, 1923). This work has not yet been 
published in English. Pastor Conradi is doubtless the most scholarly, as well as the most 
enthusiastic, researcher into the history of medieval and early-modern Adventism and 
Sabbatarianism. 

The writings of Mrs. Ellen G. White, regarded by most Adventists as inspired, are 
very numerous and voluminous. They include some volumes which have found general 
favor in evangelistic circles (notably Steps to Christ, originally published by Fleming Revell, 
which has been translated into many languages and has enjoyed an enormous circulation) 
together with frankly Adventist propaganda works and ‘‘Messages” intended for Adven- 
tists primarily. The following are outstanding: 

Early Writings written before the authoress was twenty, in a very simple yet highly 
dramatic style, charged with the most intense and ‘‘other-worldly”’ religious fervor. 

Testimonies for the Church in nine volumes. The earlier volumes contain personal 
experiences along with many very pointed personal messages and rebukes. The later 
volumes consist of counsels, warnings, and occasional predictions. 

Prophets and Kings, Patriarchs and Prophets, and Great Controversy are commentaries 
on Biblical and secular history, covering the religious history of the world from the creation 
to the end of time. The concluding chapters of Great Controversy contain very detailed, 
explicit predictions of the exact events preceding, accompanying, and following the 
Second Advent, based on Biblical prophecies but containing much original matter. 

Gospel Workers is a volume addressed to Adventist ministers and their assistants. 

Education contains the foundation principles of the Adventist educational system, 
together with much very sound advice and counsel on the conduct of schools. 

The Ministry of Healing describes the Adventist health-reform principles from a 
Biblical view-point. 

Christ's Object Lessons is a systematic commentary on the Gospel parables. The 
proceeds from the sale of this book were devoted to the rasing of indebtedness on Ad- 
ventist schools, and brought in several hundred thousand dollars. 

The Desire of Ages is a very attractively written and widely circulated life of Christ. 

All of these works are published by the Review and Herald Publishing Company, 
of Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. 


232 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


Other Adventist classics include Daniel and Revelation, by Uriah Smith, for nearly 
half a century editor of the Review and Herald, the official Adventist church-paper. This 
was for many years the chief prophetic book of the Adventists. It has recently been 
revised by L. R. Conradi, but the original work is still being sold in large numbers by 
Adventist colporteurs throughout the world. The Marvel of Nations was very widely 
circulated during the latter half of the ninetennth century, but is now out of print. It 
recapitulated historical events which fulfilled prophecy, culminating in the place taken 
by America in the final scenes of earthly history. 

The Adventists now have large, well-equipped publishing houses and printing- 
presses all over the world. The total of their publications amounts to hundreds of volumes 
and thousands of tracts and periodicals, in more than two hundred languages, and these 
are assidously circulated by an army of over ten thousand colporteurs. The total sales 
of Adventist literature amount to over sixty million dollars, to date. 

All standard encyclopedias contain articles on Adventistism but these are for the 
most part inaccurate, inadequate, and poor in their judgment of the selected material. 


The author furnished three protocols as examples, and four questionnaires, with blanks used as instruc- 
tions to church elders, and to conference presidents. Lack of space makes it necessary to omit all of these in 
printing.— Editor. 


THE TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 


By A. GAYLE WALDROP 


Property has been almost everywhere replaced by income as the criterion of obligation 
to pay. In all the leading countries of the world the general property tax has long since 
disappeared, to be supplanted by the income tax, and by other taxes designed to reach 
earnings rather than property values.! 


Laying on real estate the burden of state, county, town, and 
school revenues, and allowing to escape much of the intangible and 
tangible personalty, the tax system of Colorado, inequitable and 
inadequate, survives the recommendations for revision made by 
experts, tax commissioners, legislators, and governors. 

Reporting on the revenue system of Colorado in 1916, Dr. R. M. 
Haig of Columbia University, an associate of Dr. E. R. A. Seligman, 
who is the leading tax authority in the United States, declared 
Colorado’s problem to be the universal one: ‘‘The crumbling of the 
general property tax under complex economic conditions, decen- 
tralized administration, and high tax rates.”’ The result, he said, 
was “an unfair distribution of the tax burden and a demoralizing 
feeling of injustice which affects both taxpayer and administrator.” 

Commenting on Dr. Haig’s study of The Work of the Colorado 
Tax Commission, Dr. Seligman in 1916 declared: 


The trouble is not with the tax commission but with the law under which it is operat- 
ing, and the general-tax system. This is not the place or the time to call attention to the 
defects of the general property tax. They have been abundantly pointed out in many 
recent reports. There is not a single tax expert in the entire country who approves of the 
system as it is provided by law in Colorado. It is, under modern conditions, impossible to 
secure fiscal justice under that system. Any attempt to patch it up by better administra- 
tion only throws its defects into greater relief. 

.... Let the voters of Colorado decide to change the system, and to utilize as their 
strongest ally the much abused and unjustly attacked tax commission. It is only along 
this line that real tax reform can be accomplished. 


It is the purpose of this study to show the defects of the general 
property tax, to recall past criticisms of the Colorado tax system, 
and to suggest the income tax as a much needed support for the 
system. The study is the preliminary work for a special committee 
on taxation and retrenchment, or may serve as an aid to the newly 
created legislative reference bureau. 


1 Sound Tax Reform, 1922, E. R. A. Seligman. Chicago Daily News Reprints, No. 3. 


233 


234 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


In 1927, as in 1916, the general property tax is the mainstay of 
the revenue system, and is the elastic element. The poll tax, whose 
enforcement was a farce, was abolished in 1921. A two cent taxon 
gasoline,? a motor vehicle license fee, an inheritance tax, insurance 
fees, together with income from state lands and grants from the 
federal government, made up, with the general property tax, more 
than thirteen million dollars of the slightly less than eighteen million 
of state revenue for the fiscal year 1925. Various State departments, 
charitable, penal, and educational institutions and miscellaneous 
sources make up the balance. In 1925, general property taxes 
were $5,788,599 of the total state revenue of $17,776,297. For 
the biennium 1923-1924, general property taxes were $13,097,499 
of a total of $35,204,672. For the preceding biennium the figures were 
$11,777,109 and $33,981,515. Thus the general property tax sup- 
plies from slightly less to slightly more than one-third of the state 
revenues. 

But this is only one side of the picture. The general property 
tax, supplemented to some extent by special assessments in the. 
larger towns, carries the burden of county, school, and town revenues. 
In 1924 the state levy was 3.7 mills. The same year the average 
total levy for county, town, and school purposes was 28.01. County 
levies ranged from 2.65 to 25; town levies from 3.63 to 53.6; school 
levies from 5.73 to 18.97. 

To give the story in dollars, the distribution of the general 
property tax in Colorado for state, county, school, and town pur- 
poses in 1923, 1924, 1925 was as follows: 


TABLE 1 
Year State? County School Town Total 
1923 6,080,798 8,852,079 19 493,711 7,814,897 42,241,487 
1924 5,678,935 8,863,072 20, 202 ,029 8,248,271 42 ,992 ,308 
1925 5,726,498 9,459, 116 21,248,798 8,756,057 45,190,471 


In round figures then, the state levy is one-seventh of the total: 
And,—most significant,—county, town, and school levies are in- 
creasing greatly. 


2 Raised to 3 cents in 1927. 

3 State expenditures include general government; protection to persons and property; development and 
conservation of natural resources; conservation of health and sanitation; highways; charities, hospitals and 
corrections; higher education, and recreation. School taxes, which approach one-half the total general property 
tax, finance the public school system. 


TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 235 


These are the burdens. Who bears them? A comparison of 
summary of abstracts of assessment for the years 1912, 1913, 1921, 
1924, and 1925, in percentage terms shows the relative tax burdens 
as follows: 


TABLE 2 
1912 1913 1921 1924 1925 
Wandiand Improvements.-.:.,:..........- 21.27 24.71 34.84 33.28 32.22 
Metalliferous Mining Properties........... 4.27 Caoy) Sy feo 1.50 
Mine SLOCK eres cietiererars cies seveereacceeline ans 4.26 4.86 4.37 3.18 3.05 
Timber, Coal, and Oil Properties....,...... 1.98 LS Y/ 1.61 ilad/ 1.86 
Town and City Lots and Improvements..... 40.00 35.60 26.53 29.92 31.06 
Corporations Assessed by-Tax Commission.. 14.44 19.92 14.35 14.81 14.76 
IMMEECHANGISE oe aya xia avsierePevelohelerseisie ian ncerare * 3.95 3.68 5.54 2) 5.26 
Wiantifacturesy ic ecvecs ae cveseeyensiesevewel svesesere 83 1.04 2.60 2.58 2.49 
Banks Stockine reacties nce dineie ew juleelecs 1.84 efhi\ 1.97 1.68 1.62 
Money, Creditsand Accounts............. .97 .86 1.24 1.29 1095 
Miscellaneous (Less exemptions)........... 6.19 2.03 5.38 4.85 5.03 


Analysis of the table, which is taken from the fourteenth annual 
report of the state tax commission, shows among other things: 
that land and improvements pay almost eleven per cent more in 
1925 than in 1912; that town and city lots and improvements 
pay almost nine per cent less in 1925 than in 1912; that corporations 
assessed by the commission pay approximately the same percentage; 
and that merchandise and manufactures pay respectively 1.2 per 
cent and 1.6 per cent more. And most amazing, intangibles such as 
bank stock, money, credits and accounts show little increase in 
percentage, bank stock declining while the other class rises only 
p83 per cent. 

Real estate paid 61.27 per cent in 1912, and 63.28 per cent in 
1925. But, the burden has been shifted. The farmer (land and 
improvements) paid almost 10.95 per cent more in 1925 than in 
1912; the town dweller (town and city lots and improvements) 
paid 8.94 per cent less. Questioning the justice of this change, we 
repeat that real estate paid 63.28 per cent of the tax burden in 1925. 
This is out of all proportion, for much intangible wealth in Colorado 
is not assessed for taxation. Before producing statistics on this 
point it is pertinent to list and explain the defects of the general 
property tax. 


236 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


Seligman‘ names as defects of the general property tax: in- 
equality of assessment, failure to reach personal property, in- 
centive to dishonesty, regressivity, and double taxation. Lutz 
draws three indictments against the tax: it proposes to apply a 
uniform tax burden to different classes of property which vary 
widely in productive power, and which, moreover, are not all equally 
certain to be fully assessed; it introduces and perpetuates a very 
undesirable attitude toward this, and in time, toward all tax laws; 
a very inequitable distribution of the tax burden has resulted 
among different classes of property, among different individuals, 
and among different communities. 

The first constitutional injunction,® that of uniformity of taxa- 
tion, is violated by inequality of assessment. The Colorado Tax 
Commission found in 1913 only five of sixty-three counties in which 
property was assessed at full value. In five counties property was 
assessed at less than half value. This condition existed after the 
commission had warned the local assessors. What the situation was 
before can be imagined. Until the creation of the commission in 
1912 with the express purpose of securing full value assessment and 
fair equalization among various sections of the State, elective county 
assessors had succumbed to the competition to put assessments as 
low as any other, violating the law of ‘‘just valuation.” The State 
Board of Equalization had been blocked by court decisions from 
increasing the aggregate value or increasing valuations of classes 
of properties in counties, and had decided that further effort was 
vain. Formally it had resolved it was helpless to carry out the 
purposes for which it was created. That its appeal was unheard 
is incredible but true. It was only after thirty-five years of com- 
petitively determined assessments that Colorado had its first taste 
of equalization by the Tax Commission. 

The work of the Tax Commission has been most creditable, 
though much abused and criticised. The commission was handi- 
capped by the defeat of a constitutional amendment to centralize 
all powers of supervision and equalization in it, when in November, 

4 Essays in Taxation, tenth edition. Chapter on the General] Property Tax. New York, 1925. 

5 Public Finance, H. L. Lutz, Chapter on the General Property Tax. New York, 1926. 

6 Art. X, Sec. 2, of the Constitution: “All taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects within the 


territorial limits of the authority levying the tax, and shall be levied and collected under general laws, which 
shall prescribe such regulations as shall secure a just value for taxation of all property, real and personal.” 


TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 237 


1912, the amendment was voted on with thirty-one other proposals. 
In 1916 its life was threatened, but the voters refused to abolish it 
despite strong agitation. In 1925 Governor Morley attempted to 
cripple its efficiency by vetoing part of its appropriation. Counties 
subscribed in proportion to assessed valuation in order that a 
secretary and two investigators might be retained. The commission 
having charge of supervision of local assessments, equalization among 
counties, and the original assessment of special properties such as 
railroads, telegraph and telephone companies, and local public 
utilities, has done excellent work in making for equality of assess- 
ment. 

The second defect of the general property tax, failure to reach 
personal property, is the most flagrant in Colorado as in other 
states. The general property tax was the symbol of justice in taxation 
in the primitive economic community, but in modern economic 
society it is impossible to prevent personal property from slipping 
out of the assessment rolls. The industrial revolution, the factory 
system, the wage earner and hired man, the capitalist and the 
financier, the corporation, new forms of capital and credit on a 
large scale—these demand a new form of taxation. Property is no 
longer the criterion of ability to pay. Personal property is no longer 
visible. It more and more takes the form of mortgages, bonds and 
stocks, securities of all kinds. Slowly in Colorado, then more rapidly, 
personal property has slipped out of the assessment lists, leaving 
the general property tax a real property tax, and causing injustice 
and inequality between classes and individuals. The tax on personal 
property has come to be in inverse ratio to its quantity; the more 
it has increased the less it has paid. In New York City, a com- 
mittee reported, the tax has become one “upon ignorance and 
honesty.’’ In Illinois it has been described as ‘‘a school for perjury, 
promoted by law.”’ In West Virginia it has come to be considered 
pretty much in the same light as ‘‘a donation to the neighborhood 
church or Sunday School.’”’ What else could happen? To declare 
stocks and bonds was to have taxes take one-third to two-thirds 
of their return. Such a confiscatory tax demanded escape. And 
that such property escaped from such a tax in Colorado is evident 
when federal income tax statistics of individuals and corporations 
in Colorado are considered. In 1924, $10,186,833 was paid on net 
incomes of more than $265,000,000. 


238 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


In Colorado in 1924, 73,350 individuals filed Federal income 
tax returns, or 7.3 per cent of the estimated population of 1,004,803. 
Of this total 36,844 were non-taxable because of exemptions and 
deductions. The net income reported was $205,087,973, and the 
tax paid by the 36,506 individuals having taxable income was 
$3,162,736. The net income for corporations was $60,846,149, and 
the tax was $7,024,097. Of 6,494 corporations 2,891 reported net 
incomes. Of this number 383 manufacturing corporations and 173 
mining and quarrying corporations reported net incomes of more 
than $33,000,000 and paid almost $4,000,000 of the $7,024,097 
corporation tax. In the income levels above $10,000, returns num- 
bered only 1,856, yet these accounted for $2,632,355 of the total 
tax of $3,162,736. Thus 34,650 individuals paid only $530,381. 

Colorado individuals paid federal income taxes of more than 
$40,000,000 in the years 1916 to 1924 inclusive. During the same 
years corporation taxes amounted to more than $44,000,000. 


TABLE 3 
FEDERAL INCOME Tax RETURNS BY YEARS FOR INDIVIDUALS 

Year Number Net Income Tax 

1916 4,435 $ 53,854,130 $1,055,758 
1917 40,627 137,853,875 5,184,948 
1918 54,160 159 487,951 5,844,925 
1919 57,526 191,001,999 7,196,593 
1920 74,198 219,277,184 6,766,900 
1921 69,676 174,490,980 3,862,862 
1922 67 , 463 184,572,407 4,869,555 
1923 72,366 200,572,724 3,267,732 
1924 73,350 205 ,087 ,973 3,162,736 

TABLE 4 
FEDERAL INCOME TAX RETURNS BY CORPORATIONS 
Year No. Reporting Net Income Tax 
Net Income 

1916 2,986 $57 ,043 , 218 $1,115,854 
1917 3,539 96,761,318 4,743,980 
1918 3,273 74,209, 860 5,504,966 
1919 3,107 79 , 287,797 6,237,031 
1920 2,976 66,034,834 5,135, 565 
1921 2,340 34,041,045 2,716,262 
1922 2,720 55,835,080 5,508 ,928 
1923 2,636 60,490,802 6,182,816 


1924 2,891 60,846, 149 7,024,097 


TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 239 


In “The Financing of Public School Education in Colorado,’’? 
and again in “The Financing of Public Higher Education in Colo- 
rado,”’ Dr. Don C. Sowers, executive secretary, Bureau of Business 
and Governmental Research of the University of Colorado Ex- 
tension Division, produces figures to show “that millions of dollars 
of intangible property in Colorado are not being reached by the 
present system of taxation.’”’ He begins with an indictment of the 
general property tax: 


Colorado is still clinging to the old general property tax and has not yet developed the 
newer taxation methods which are necessary to bring the system of taxation into harmony 
with changed economic conditions. As a result, farm lands and improvements, town and 
city real estate, livestock, and miscellaneous personal property pay over 71 per cent of the 
total taxes; corporations, banks, manufacturers and merchandise pay 24 per cent; while 
intangible property contributes less than 2 per cent of our total taxes. That the amount 
of wealth represented by intangible property or property in securities is large in Colorado 
as is also the amount of income derived from professional earnings and profits in business, 
is shown by returns made to the commissioner of internal revenue, under the provisions of 
the federal income tax law. 

The net income of individuals in Colorado making income tax returns to the federal 
government in 1920 was $219,277,184; this amount included $19,540,102 which was 
received from dividends which were exempt from the normal federal tax; assuming that 
these securities yielded 4 per cent it appears that citizens of Colorado had invested in tax- 
exempt securities the sum of $488,504,000 which was almost one-third of the total assessed 
valuation of the state for that year. The cash value of all promissory notes, bonds, 
debentures and all other written evidences of indebtedness reported in Colorado for tax- 
tion purposes the same year was $9,950,383. 

These figures indicate that millions of dollars of intangible property in Colorado are 
not being reached by the present system of taxation. Individuals securing incomes from 
salaries, professional earnings, and investments in securities go practically untaxed. 

New methods of taxation have been devised and used successfully by the United 
States government and by other state governments to tap these vast resources of wealth and 
to make them contribute their just share to the support of government. These newer 
methods consist of state income taxes, classified property taxes, special taxes on corpora- 
tions and business, and severance taxes. 


Personal property does not escape from the income tax. In- 
tangible wealth bears its share equally with returns from houses 
and lands. Bonds and stocks pay a fair share, as do professional 
earnings. The turnover of capital which makes a greater return than 
the capital that is less profitably invested bears its relative burden. 
The income tax bears justly on the ability of the individual and the 


1 University of Colorado Studies, Vol. XIV, Nos. 1 and 2, June and September, 1924, Boulder, Colo 


240 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


corporation. It overcomes that fundamental defect of the general 
property tax, the failure to reach personal property. 

To return to other defects of the general property tax: it is often 
regressive, that is, the rate increases as the property or income de- 
creases. 


The tax on personalty is levied virtually only on those who already stand on the asses- 
sor’s book as liable to the tax on realty. Those who own no real estate are in most cases not 
taxed at all; those who possess realty bear the taxes for both. The weight of taxation really 
rests on the farmer, because in the rural districts the assessors add the personalty, which is 
generally visible and tangible, to the realty, and impose the tax on both. What is prac- 
tically a real property tax in the remainder of the state becomes a general property tax in 
the rural regions. The farmer bears not only his share, but also that of the other classes of 
society.® 


Finally, there is double taxation under the general property tax. 
The problem is that of debt exemption or no debt exemption. Both 
have proved equally bad in practice. Individuals should be taxed on 
what they own, not what they owe, it may be contended. Then 
mortgage debts on real property and general liabilities on personalty 
should be exempted. But deduction for indebtedness results in such 
injustice and deception as to be utterly unendurable, investigators 
say. It is thoroughly pernicious in operation, offering temptation to 
fraud and perjury, making the creation of fictitious debts a paying 
investment. Yet the fault lies not in debt exemption, but in the 
taxation of property. The general property tax under either of these 
methods produces crying injustice. 

“If we sum up all these inherent defects,” a tax expert declares, 
“it will be no exaggeration to say that the general property tax in 
the United States is a dismal failure.”” And again: 


Historically, theoretically, and practically, the general property tax is discredited. 
Because of its attempt to tax intangible as well as tangible things, it sins against the 
cardinal rules of uniformity, of equality, and of universality of taxation. It puts a pre- 
mium on dishonesty and debauches the public conscience; it reduces deception to a system, 
and makes a science of knavery; it presses hardest on those least able to pay; it imposes 
double taxation on one man and grants entire immunity to the next. In short, the general 
property tax is soflagrantly inequitable that its retention can be explained only through 
ignorance or inertia. It is the cause of such crying injustice that its alteration or its 
abolition must become the battle cry of every statesman and reformer. 


8 Essays in Taxation, Seligman. 


TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 241 


Such is the arraignment and such the conclusion reached by 
Dr. E. R. A. Seligman,® whose essays and studies in taxation have 
influenced legislators and students for a generation, and whose 
advice resulted in the adoption of New York’s successful system of 
income taxation. Nor has any voice been raised to contest the 
validity of his judgment. 

Two factors hasten the passing of the general property tax in 
Colorado; the changing economic conditions already alluded to, 
wherein property is no longer the index of a man’s taxpaying ability, 
and the growth of governmental expenditures caused by the ex- 
pansion of governmental functions. 

Colorado is still a mixture of the primitive and the modern in 
economic life, but manufacturing has come to be second only to 
agriculture in the value of products. The value of products in 192310 
was $255,182,504. Then, there is the growth of governmental ex- 
penditures, the common fate of all states. The depreciation of the 
dollar has something to do with growth, but the expanding functions 
of government are also responsible. From the punitive or repressive 
stage, the State has progressed to the preventive stage, thence to the 
ameliorative stage, and within recent years to the constructive stage. 
Citizens expect and demand more of local and state governments 
as well as the federal government. 

Not only do they want better roads and better schools, but they 
want parks, public health service, and many things which heretofore 
were regarded as in the domain of private, not public finance. There 
is no hope of limiting the expenditures of a growing state.11 The 
problem is one of efficient spending, of effective budgeting of public 
expenditures,” and of revising revenue systems to provide for needed 
moneys, and to provide against the wholesale exemption of any 
class from its public obligation. 

It is to the advantage, therefore, of all sections of the State, to 


® If quotations appear frequently from his writings, and if those who have read his works find frequent 
echoes and paraphrases, it is to be explained by the fact that his studies are the outstanding ones on the subject, 
and the most authoritative. 

10 Colorado State Year Book, Denver, 1925. 

11 Note statistics of Table 1, on page 234. 

12 The 26th General Assembly (1927) passed seventy-five appropriation bills providing for expenditures 
totalling $6,396,990. The estimated state revenue, according to the state auditor, was $4,548,000, or $1,848,990 
less than the appropriations. In 1925 over-appropriations of approximately $1,000,000 were met only by an 
unexpectedly large receipt from the inheritance tax. 


242 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


find a solution of the tax problem. The financial problems of the 
cities'* may be solved only in this way, while the interests of the rural 
regions in securing a fair distribution of the state burdens compels 
their intelligent support of the movement. There can be little doubt 
that in Colorado progress in taxation lies away from the general 
property tax, and in the direction of the income tax. 

Most significant is the fact that the state levy, falling from 
4.5555 in 1912 to 1.3 in 1913 (because of the full valuation enforced 
by the newly created tax commission), has been under 3 mills only 
four years since 1913, and has twice been more than 4 mills. The 
years and levies are: 1914—1.39; 1915—2.1; 1916—2.07; 1917— 
3.12; 1918—2.77; 1919—3.47; 1920—3.47; 1921—4.35; 1922—4.48; 
1923—3.93; and 1924 and 1925—3.7. This indicates that the 
revenues resulting from taxation on full valuation have already been 
absorbed by the needs of a growing state. Where, then, will Colorado 
find needed revenues for further expansion, and how will it meet the 
problem of inequality of taxation caused by the escape of personal 
property? 

In its first annual report, 1912, the state tax commission said: 
“The commission is of the opinion that the most equitable form of 
taxation is the income tax.” The report suggested, however, that 
Wisconsin’s experiment with the tax adopted the preceding year 
be watched before Colorado attempt it. Surveying the general 
property tax, the commission declared the assessment of intangible 
property to be its weakest feature. From 1901 to 1912, it reported, 
assessment on this class of property varied from $10,000,000 to 
$21,000,000. The commission added $2,000,000 to the assessment 
its first year. 

During the same period the assessment of moneys, credits, bank 
accounts, etc., declined $8,000,000. This, the commission judged to 
be due to the failure of assessors to find such property, or the ability 
of tax payers in concealing it. Written evidences of indebtedness 
were higher in 1901 and 1902 than in any year since, the 1912 report 
continued. Yet the increase in value of this class of property had 
been great, the population of the State had increased from 539,700 
in 1900 to 799,024 in 1910. 

Other statistics adduced in this first report concerned capital 


13 See statistics on relative increase in expenditures by state, county, school, and town, on page 234. 


TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 243 


employed in manufactures. The United States Census reported in 
1904, $107,664,000, and in 1909, $162,688,000. Assessed valuation 
in Colorado for 1903 was only $3,487,122, and in 1912, $3,507,675. 
Moreover, the commission said: ‘“‘At the present time many in- 
dustries receiving large incomes pay small taxes, while others, owning 
property that produces little or no income, must pay a large pro- 
portion of the total tax.” Here, the essential injustice of the general 
property tax is exposed. 

The second, third, and fourth annual reports of the commission 
add nothing of value to our study. 

After pointing to an increase in taxes because of schools and roads, 
the fifth annual report of the commission recommended three con- 
stitutional amendments and a number of statutory provisions. These 
were: abolition of the State Board of Equalization (consisting of the 
governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, auditor, and attorney 
general); making the term of county assessors four instead of two 
years, and leaving their manner of selection to the legislature; and 
the removal of restrictions upon the legislature so as to make it less 
difficult for new forms of taxation, such as income or gross earnings 
tax, to be introduced. Among the statutory provisions was one to 
increase the assessment of metal mines to their actual value. 

“The time is near when arrangements must be made to combine 
income and other modern methods with our property tax,” the 
seventh annual report in 1918 insisted. Again, constitutional amend- 
ments proposed included a removal of restrictions, 


so that the legislature may be free to supplant the general property tax upon intangible 
property by the income tax system for state and local purposes..... Real estate, utility 
corporations, livestock, and merchandise, are paying over 90 per cent of our total tax. 
This is not just, amd the present system will sooner or later reach the breaking point. 
Years of experience by every state in our nation has conclusively demonstrated that a 
success cannot be made of trying to tax money, notes, bank deposits, stocks, bonds, and 
other intangibles under the general property system. Experience likewise demonstrates 
that income tax for all purposes is the only rational solution of the problem. 


The commission recommended that some form of income tax for 
state and local purposes be adopted, and suggested that salaries of 
all public officials be made taxable. Again the commission asked that 
the term of assessors be lengthened to four years, and now asked 
that they be appointed. It repeated its conviction that metal mining 


244 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


property be assessed at actual value. It asked that the inheritance 
tax be placed under the commission instead of the attorney general’s 
office. 

Recounting increasing expenditures, the eighth annual report of 
the commission in 1919 declared: ‘‘The burden on real property 
which bears the brunt of taxation in our system, is becoming well 
nigh intolerable.” It recalled the inaugural message of Governor 
Oliver H. Shoup, of January 14, 1919: “It is recommended that you 
investigate fully and very carefully the subject of taxation in order 
to determine whether the tax burden can be more justly and equi- 
tably distributed.”’ The commission again asked that metal mining 
property be assessed at actual value, declaring that the present law 
makes for practically a subsidy at the expense of farmers and manu- 
facturers. 

The ninth annual report repeated the recommendations for legis- 
lation made in the seventh report. The tenth annual report recorded 
declining values in land, livestock, and mining property, showing for 
the State a loss of valuation of three-fourths of 1 per cent. ‘‘The 
bill, looking to the creation of an income tax system, so long ad- 
vocated by this commission, did not get out of committee,” the report 
set down as history. 

A further loss in valuation of 1.8 per cent of the State total was 
reported by the commission in its next annual report. “Attention 
was called, in the first biennial report of this commission made in 
1912,” the eleventh annual report read, 


to the desirability of considering an income tax for Colorado to support our general prop- 
erty tax, and to take the place of the intangible personal property tax. At that time only 
one state, Wisconsin, had adopted a thorough-going income tax law, and its success or 
failure as a state measure had not been demonstrated. Since then some 12 to 15 states, 
notably New York and Massachusetts, have adopted income tax measures which seem to 
be working satisfactorily, and the movement is steadily spreading. .... An amendment to 
Sec. 6, Art 10 of the constitution, empowering the legislature to impose a uniform or 
graduated tax on any or all incomes, was submitted to the people at the November election 
(1922). This amendment was defeated. It is the opinion of many that this defeat is to be 
attributed largely to a misunderstanding of the effect of such a law, and to the well known 
disinclination of the people to look with favor upon any measure pertaining to new forms of 
taxation. The legal department of the State has recently expressed the opinion that 
a uniform income tax could be adopted in Colorado without a constitutional amendment. 


The twelfth annual report recorded a further loss of .35 per cent 


TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 245 


in State valuation. In the year this report was made, 1923, a joint 
income and business profits tax, copied almost word for word from 
the model bill recommended by the National Tax Association, was 
passed by the House, but killed in the Senate. This bill was worked 
on with the advice of Tax Commissioner C. P. Link and Governor 
William E. Sweet. It provided a tax of 3 per cent on entire net 
income from all property owned, from all business transacted, invest- 
ments made, trade, profession, or occupation carried on within 
Colorado by any foreign or domestic corporation, joint stock com- 
pany, or association of persons. Deductions were allowed for a single 
person to the amount of $1,000 and $2,000 for a married person, with 
$200 additional for each dependent. 

The thirteenth annual report, recording a further loss of 2 per 
cent, returned to the problem of the tax system: 

The ever-growing burden of taxation must be deemed to be the principal cause of the 
discontent and agitation which gives rise to such efforts and movements as indicated 
(to reduce land values 25% and 50%, to abolish the Tax Commission). And as under our 
system of personal property taxation this burden falls heaviest on real property, it is per- 
haps not to be wondered at that owners of farm lands are seeking a remedy. But the 
remedy does not lie in assessed valuations, and even if it did, it has not been shown that 
farm lands are assessed any higher than they ought to be in comparison with other classes 
of property..... It is local and not state expenditure that is responsible for most of our 
taxes,“ and the remedy lies with the people themselves. .... This matter of local re- 
sponsibility must be understood before there can be any alleviation of the present burden. 
Either that or a change in our system which would put on the tax rolls much property 
which cannot be reached by our present system. Lower taxes will never be brought about 
by lowering valuations, or by abolishing the tax commission. 


The fourteenth annual report in 1925, the last available, renewed 
the recommendations of the seventh annual report. It reported a 
.17 per cent increase in state valuations. 

In the 1927 Assembly a bill for a tax on intangibles failed to 
pass the House. Thus is progress made in revising Colorado’s tax 
system! 

What progress has been made in state income taxation? Since 
1911, thirteen states have introduced personal income taxes. These 
states are Arkansas, Delaware, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, 
North Carolina, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, 
South Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin which in 1911 made the 


14 Again see Table 1, on page 234. 


246 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


first serious attempt to grapple with the evils of the general property 
tax. Several of these have also levied taxes on corporate incomes, 
either as a part of a general income tax, or under separate laws. 
In the former group are Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North 
Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In the 
latter are Massachusetts and New York.© Income taxes were enacted 
in New Mexico and Alabama, but the former was held unconstitu- 
tional and the latter was soon repealed. 

To consider the outstanding examples: Wisconsin has very 
largely supplanted the personal property tax; Massachusetts has 
reached intangible personalty and professional incomes; New York’s 
reform is the most significant, and may be summed up as the com- 
plete abolition of the general property tax and the substitution of a 
general income tax, assessed by the state, but with careful provisions 
for the maintenance of local revenues, the putting of all corporations 
(public utilities as well as general business corporations) on the in- 
come basis, and the substantial restriction of the real estate tax to 
local purposes. 

The Wisconsin income tax is not over and above the general 
property tax, but is a substitute in part for the unworkable tax on 
personal property. Seventy per cent of the tax goes to the locality 
where collected, twenty per cent to the county, and only ten per cent 
to the state, the last the expected cost of administering the tax. 
The tax, applying to residents and to business transacted or income 
derived from property in the state, is a graduated one rising from 
1 per cent on the first $1,000 (above the $800 exemption for in- 
dividual, $1,200 for husband and wife, $200 for each child) to 6 per 
cent on the thirteenth $1,000 and all above. 

The Wisconsin corporation tax is on net income, and there are 
no exemptions or deductions. Starting at 2 per cent on the first 
$1,000, the rate rises to 6 per cent on $6,000 and over. Collection 
is made at the source, and the individual stockholder is not taxed on 
his dividend. 

The New York income tax, adopted in 1919, marks an important 
stage in the fiscal history of the United States. Having tried the 
system of separation of sources for almost a decade (collateral and 


18 Public Finance, Lutz. 
16 Political Science Quarterly, New York, Dec. 1919. Vol. 34, pages 521-545. 


TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 247 


then direct inheritance taxes, an organization tax on corporations, a 
racing tax, were used for state purposes in the 80’s), the state intro- 
duced a new principle, the division of yield between state and locality 
with the introduction of the liquor license law of 1896. In 1901 a tax 
at a special rate on banks and similar institutions was imposed. In 
1905 the stock transfer tax added to state revenues. In 1906 a 
mortgage recording tax was added. The proceeds from these so- 
called indirect taxes increased rapidly. In 1907 it became possible 
substantially to dispense with the direct tax for state purposes. But 
about 1910 expenditures of the state and localities increased by leaps 
and bounds. Care of hospitals, administrative supervision of in- 
dustries and transportation, construction of roads, enlargement of the 
Erie Canal, took up the slack of the new taxes. In 1912 the state 
direct tax was reimposed. Thus separation of sources was seen not 
to be a final solution of the tax problem. Underassessment of real 
estate and of personal property continued. The classified property 
tax, for various reasons, was not considered desirable. The income 
tax was the solution. 

In 1914 Connecticut had adopted a state corporation income tax, 
utilizing a duplicate return as made to the federal government. In 
1917 New York adopted what was in fact a corporation income tax, 
public utilities and banks being excepted as still subject to the old 
system of capital and gross receipts taxes. In 1919, New York dis- 
carded the general property tax, and substituted the income tax on 
both individuals and corporations. 

The New York law reduces to a minimum the difficulties of the 
administrator and the annoyance of the tax payer, returns for the 
federal tax being utilized with insignificant changes for the state tax. 
The exemptions are $1,000 for single persons, $2,000 for married, 
with $200 for each dependent. The law includes, however, income 
from all sources, irrespective of whether some of the sources, like 
corporations and real estate, are reached in other ways. The theory 
upon which this is based is that a tax on corporations is a business 
tax and is impersonal, and that such a tax is to be sharply dis- 
tinguished from the individual income tax which is a personal tax. 

The state tax in New York is not steeply graduated, being 1 per 
cent on the first $10,000, 2 per cent from $10,000 to $50,000, and 
3 per cent above $50,000. It would be an impossible burden to super- 


248 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


impose upon the federal graduated tax a similar state tax nor does 
the state need the revenue such a graduated tax would yield. If in 
the future the federal scale is lowered, and the state and localities 
need greatly increased revenue, it will be possible to raise the scale 
of the state tax. 

The New York tax is centrally administered by the state comp- 
troller. Politics prevented administration by the state tax com- 
mission which controls the corporation tax. The principle of division 
of yield is carried out as follows: after retention of a small fund from 
which to pay refunds and abatements, one-half of the proceeds is 
apportioned to each locality in the ratio of the real estate assessments. 
This provision, meeting the revenue needs of both state and localities, 
also makes for higher and more equitable assessments in the locali- 
ties. Thus under the income tax the higher the assessment in the 
locality, the greater its share of the tax. Under the general property 
tax the reverse was true, the higher the assessed valuation, the 
greater the burden on the locality. 

The problem of taxation of non-residents is solved by giving them 
an allowance for a tax which is levied by the state of residence pro- 
viding such state grant similar credit to residents of New York. 

The New York tax has been most successful in equalizing the 
tax burden and in producing revenue. A Colorado committee on 
taxation and retrenchment would find its study indispensable.!” 

* * * 


In view of the most successful federal income taxes, why should 
Colorado not adopt a state income tax, limiting the property tax to 
a tax on real estate, chiefly for local purposes? Why should Colorado 
not impose a tax on business through a corporation income tax? 
And why should Colorado not tax all personal property, tangible as 
well as intangible, through the income tax? 

Whatever form of personal and corporation income taxes Colo- 
rado may adopt, a real estate tax will have to be retained as the 


17 A comprehensive treatment of all state income tax laws, with criticisms of their defects, is to be found 
in “State Taxation of Personal Incomes,” Dr. Alzada Comstock, 1921. Vol. CI, No. 1 of Studies in History, 
Economics, and Public Law, Columbia University, New York. In this also is found a copy of the personal income 
tax act preferred for the National Tax Association by a committee appointed to preparea plan for a model system 
of state and local taxation, January 1921. The act provides one per cent tax on the first $1,000, two on the 
second, etc., with five per cent on incomes in excess of $5,000. Intangible property is exempted from the general 
property tax and exemptions are $1,000 and $2,000. 


TAX SYSTEM OF COLORADO 249 


important source of local, school, and county revenues. New York’s 
plan of dividing the tax between the state and localities on the 
basis of real estate valuations commends itself. Local, county, 
and school expenditures, it may be noted again, made up nearly 
forty of the forty-five million dollar total general property tax in 
1925. While the State needs additional revenue, the towns, schools, 
and counties need it more. The principle of division of yield will 
prove as acceptable in Colorado as it has in New York. 

Under any income taxes adopted, Colorado should exempt 
entirely intangible personalty, for the income tax reaches the income 
from intangibles. Tangible personalty also should be exempted. 
That part of tangible personalty, which includes productive capital 
such as stock in trade, machinery for manufacturing, livestock and 
implements, is taxed under an income tax. Other tangible property, 
such as household furniture and jewelry (automobiles are taxed 
separately in almost all states), provide great administrative diffi- 
culties in taxation, and can be better reached for the luxurious in- 
dividual through a progressive income tax. It is highly questionable 
whether it is desirable to impose a tax on consumption, save in war 
time, on the average consumer. 

In the Colorado personal income tax law the principle of differ- 
entiation between earned and unearned income should be observed 
in the lower stages. Progressive scales will take care of the difference 
between income from labor and income from possessions in the higher 
income classes. This detail should be worked out by the special 
committee on taxation and retrenchment. 

The income tax, by all means, should be centrally administered 
by the state tax commission. Perhaps the chief reason that experi- 
ments with state income taxes up to 1911 were utterly insignificant 
was the lack of central administration.’ Wisconsin’s tax, the first 
successful state income tax, is administered by the state tax com- 
mission. New York’s tax is centrally administered. 

All corporations, including public utilities and financial com- 
panies, ought to be under the corporation income tax. This would 
obviate any criticism of the fairness of valuations of the state tax 
commission, and would make corporations making more money than 
others with a like amount of property, pay their relative share of 
taxes. Instead of summation of criticisms of the general property 


250 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


tax, of Colorado’s tax problem, of the changes in Colorado’s tax 
system that might be made on the basis of the experience of other 
states, to close this essay, another quotation from Seligman:!8 


The general property tax as the sole or chief source of revenue has long since disap- 
peared in every other country of the world (except the United States), the principal reason 
being that under modern economic conditions property no longer forms so accurate an 
index of wealth as does income. It is only in the case of real estate that, as a result of the 
paramount considerations of administrative efficiency, property or selling value is still 
utilized as a criterion of taxable ability. But in the rest of the modern economic field not 
only are there large incomes which are never capitalized, because derived from exertions 
rather than from possessions and spent in lieu of being accumulated, but the prosperity 
of the average business man is much more faithfully reflected in his income account than 
in his capital account..... Equality of taxation, therefore, means the replacement of the 
general property tax by the general income tax. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


(Chronologically arranged) 


“The Need of a State Tax Commission in Colorado,” Dr. J. B. Phillips, University of 
Colorado Studies, Vol. VIII, No. 2, February, 1911. 

Colorado Tax Commission Reports, 1912-1925, Denver. 

Essays in Taxation, (tenth edition) New York, 1925; The Income Tax, New York, 1914; 
“Sound Tax Reform” (Chicago Daily News Reprints No. 3, 1922); lectures on public 
finance at Columbia University, 1926-27, Dr. E. R. A. Seligman, McVicar Professor 
of Political Economy. 

The Work of the Colorado Tax Commission, Dr. R. M. Haig, Denver, 1916. 

Selected Readings in Public Finance, C. J. Bullock, Boston, 1920. 

“State Taxation of Personal Incomes,” Dr. Alzada Comstock, Vol. CI, No. 1, Studies in 
History, Economice and Public Law, Columbia University, New York, 1921. 

“The Financing of Public School and Public Higher Education in Colorado,” Dr. Don C. 
Sowers, University of Colorado Studies, Vol. XIV, Nos. 1 and 2, June and September, 
1924, 

Colorado Yearbooks, 1925 and 1927, Denver. 

Colorado Sun, Boulder, 1925. Special articles and editorials on a revision of Colorado’s tax 
system. 

Public Finance, Dr. H. L. Lutz, New York, 1926, 

Correspondence with Rudolph Johnson, member Twenty-seventh Assembly of Colorado. 
Boulder (Colo.) News-Herald, January to April, 1927. 


18 Political Science Quarterly, Dec. 1919. Vol. 34, pages 521-545. 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 


By Mrr1am RIEDER 


The object of this study is to establish the literary sources of the 
Italian opera, and particularly of those operas of which the music is 
still accessible and to be heard today. Despite the great popularity 
of opera little interest has been shown for the unquestionably close 
interrelation between opera texts and literature. The most prominent 
composers and their works will be taken up chronologically and the 
literary inspiration of the operas given wherever this has been 
established. 

Opera originated in Italy and is conceded by the best authorities 
to have had its birth in the efforts of a group of men known as the 
camerata, who met at the house and under the leadership of Count 
Giovanni Bardi in Florence at the beginning of the 17th Century. 
We know of earlier attempts to combine music and drama, as for 
instance, The Conversion of St. Paul, which was played with music 
at Rome in 1440. Indeed, the Church, from the earliest days of its 
history, employed a dramatic form which was an outgrowth of the 
pagan drama with chorus of antiquity. The first Christian priests 
recognized the interest lying in dramatic performances and were 
quick to adapt Biblical stories for representation. The musical 
element was provided in the form of old Latin hymns. There were 
many of these biblical representations in the Middle Ages but, un- 
fortunately, in order to retain the interest of the multitude, they 
were allowed to deteriorate. Low comedy was introduced and the 
religious drama fell to the plane of farce comedy. A reform was 
imperative and this was provided by san Filippo Neri (b. 1515), the 
founder of the Congregation of the Fathers of the Oratory at Rome. 
It was from this reform that the oratorio, and therefore indirectly 
the opera, sprang. Neri’s attempts were not in themselves dramatic, 
however. In order to attract young people to his chapel he caused 
hymns and psalms to be sung by one or more voices, and among 
these spiritual songs were some in the form of dialogues. Neri en- 
listed the aid of Animuccia and Palaestrina of the papal chapel in 
the preparation of these laudi spirituali, as they were called. These 


Editor’s Note. This contribution was kindly prepared by Mrs. Rieder, at the request 
of the Editor, from a much longer paper. 


251 


22 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


developed then into dialogues interspersed with choruses, the 
musical setting of which was of such great beauty that they became 
extremely popular, and St. Phillip’s oratory was always crowded. 
It is from this oratory that the word oratorio is derived. 


It is at this point that we have a branching off, which was to give 
us the opera. The oratorio continued to develop as an independent 
form but its sister, the opera, found its genesis and developed side 
by side with it. There were also other influences at work which 
contributed to its development. There were early secular, as well 
as sacred, representations of dramatic subjects combined with music. 
In the beginning there was no difference between the two except in 
subject matter. They consisted of dialogues interspersed with 
choruses, and these choruses were written, as were the other secular 
songs of the time, in three, four, and five part polyphony. We have 
also accounts of plays, given as early as 1350, which had a chorus at 
the end of each scene. The introduction of these pieces of music 
found favor and they developed into what became known as inter- 
mezzt. These became of more and more importance until they de- 
veloped into separate short plays of lighter character than the main 
drama, and which were given between the acts. These intermezzi 
developed later into opera buffa, the modern Italian comic opera. 

The first profane subject rendered operatically, of which we have 
any knowledge, was Orpheus, by Angelo Poliziano, with libretto 
by Cardinal Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. This was given 
in 1480 in a theater maintained by the popes. It was in the form of 
the contemporary sacred musical plays. We have reason to think 
that there were embryonic operas ostentatiously produced in the 
16th Century but the accounts of these early productions have not 
been preserved. We know of a number of madrigal plays, which we 
would call dramatic cantatas, which in Italy seem invariably to have 
become comic in character. The text of these was not different from 
that of an ordinary play, but there was no acting and the music was 
in the traditional contrapuntal style. 


We now come to the group of musical enthusiasts, the camerata, 
in the early part of the 17th Century, who were responsible for the 
first operas worthy of the name. This group was pervaded with the 
spirit of the renaissance and was therefore intensely enthusiastic 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 253 


about Greek literature. They wished to restore the Greek drama but 
found that, in order to do this, they would have to find and restore 
something like the Greek music used in that drama. In seeking this 
they found a substitute for the unsuitable polyphonic choruses of 
the time. The fact that in the dramatic recitation of the Greeks a 
single person sang or intoned his part alone with an accompaniment 
of lyres and flutes or similar instruments led them to construct an 
artistic monody, the first example of which was a setting of the Count 
Ugolino story from Dante’s Inferno done by Galilei. Cavalieri in 
1588-1595 brought out a number of works on classical subjects 
written in the new style. Giulio Caccini, in imitation of Galilei, set 
many sonnets to music. This style must not be confused with the 
solo singing which already existed throughout the middle ages as 
practiced by the troubadours and minstrels. The latter had never 
been employed in connection with theatrical representations. It was 
a genre apart and did not influence the development of dramatic 
recitative. 

The first work which can conclusively be called an opera is Dafne 
(1597) by Peri and Rinuccini. In this work the dialogue was all in 
the new recitative and the chorus was heard only at the conclusion 
of each act. It was given at the Corsi palace where the camerata was 
then holding its meetings and was regarded as an experiment to try 
the power of the new vocal music. It was called a favola in musica, 
or opera, and was a great success. Unfortunately the score is not 
extant. A translation into German was set to music by the composer, 
Heinrich Schiitz, and was given in Germany in 1627. This had some 
influence on the development of German opera, but not a preponder- 
ant amount, as the German national opera was rather an outgrowth 
of the Sings piel. 

The success of Dafne led the composer to write another work in 
the same style, Euridice (1600), which is the earliest Italian opera 
extant. It was produced as a festival play in honor of the marriage 
of King Henry IV of France and Maria de’Medici. It also met with 
immediate success. Rinuccini went to France later in the suite of 
Maria and endeavored to introduce the new form there, but was 
not successful. The dramatic recitative was not in accordance with 
French taste at the time. French opera was an outgrowth of the 
ballet. 


254 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


Strangely enough the members of the camerata did not realize that 
they had failed to revive the ancient Greek declamation and had 
evolved a new art instead. 

The subject matter of these early operas was classico-mythological. 
Dafne and Euridice by Peri and Rinuccini, and later Orfeo (1607) 
and Arianna (1608) by Monteverde, and Dafne (1608) by Gagliardo, 
show not only a strict adherence to this type of subject, but betray 
a tendency on the part of Italian opera writers to use the same story, 
and even the same libretto again and again. This custom became 
established thus early in the development of opera, for Gagliardo 
made use of Rinuccini’s libretto for his work. 

The early classico-mythological subjects gave way to classico- 
historical texts, which were historical only in title. The early operas 
had been written by and for the intellectual aristocracy, who were 
imbued with the spirit of the Renaissance and who were interested 
only in the revival of Greek subjects. As opera became popular and 
more accessible to the people through the building of a large number 
of opera houses throughout Italy, the standards declined. No longer 
were strictly classical subjects used and no longer did high tragedy 
hold the field. The spirit of the age began to find expression; the 
social and moral atmosphere became 17th Century Italian and the 
intrigues and complications of melodrama began to enter. New 
personages began to find their way into the cast, particularly the 
low comedian. Cavalli was the ruling genius of the opera at this 
stage of its development and it is in his opera, Doriclea, that the comic 
element first enters. His operas belong to the pseudo-historical class 
and abound in anachronisms. 

In the oratorio style of opera we find mythological subjects, and 
tales taken from Christian, Roman, Jewish, and Oriental history, 
especially such as had already been used by Italian poets. The same 
plots were used repeatedly and with but slight variations. Magical 
and superhuman elements were introduced, as they had been in the 
romances of chivalry of Pulci, Ariosto, Boiardo, and Tasso. In fact, 
episodes from precisely these romances became increasingly popular. 

As opera departed from the tragic and purely classical subjects 
it became more elaborate in its settings. At the beginning of the 
opera there was usually a prologue by mythological personages or 
personified ideas which was obviously an outgrowth of the allegories 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 255 


of the Middle Ages. At the end there was ordinarily an epilogue of 
an apologetic character. Sometimes good poets acted as librettists, 
such as Busonello, but in general the librettos were not considered 
to be of importance. They were thrown together hastily, were often 
bombastic and composed of anything that might serve the purpose, 
regardless of unity, logic or reason. Scenic effects, elaborate and 
showy but not dramatic, became the vogue. Complicated technique 
on the part of the singer was also demanded, but the text of an 
opera was of secondary importance. 

Handel used historical and mythological subjects with borrowings 
from Italian authors of the Renaissance, as in Rinaldo (1710), the 
text of which was written by Rossi and which is founded on the 
episode of Rinaldo and the enchantress, Armida, from Tasso’s 
Gerusalemme liberata (1575). Scarlatti had a predilection for his- 
torical themes. Piccini and Gluck, on the other hand, preferred tales 
from classical mythology and literature, although Gluck sometimes 
made use of historical subjects. 

The Italian poet, Metastasio, supplied the text for many of 
Gluck’s early operas, particularly of such as represented his con- 
cessions to the taste of the time. These texts were inane conglomera- 
tions of words. The operas in which he embodied his reforms, being 
truly dramatic in quality, naturally had to have coherent and 
dramatic texts. Orfeo e Euridice (1762) had a libretto by the poet, 
Calzabigi, which was not lacking in value. The libretto of [phigenie 
en Aulide (1774) is an adaptation by Du Rollet of Racine’s drama 
of the same name (1674), which in turn found its inspiration in the 
tragedy of Euripides. Armide (1777) has a libretto by Quinault from 
the same source as Handel’s Rinaldo. Piccini’s Roland (1778) is also 
founded on the same material. The librettos for [phigenie en Tauride 
(1779), which was set to music by both Gluck and Piccini, were 
written by Guichard and Dubreuil respectively. They are modeled 
on a drama of the same name by Guimond de la Touche which 
appeared in 1757 and which was taken from the drama of Euripides. 
The story is a sequel to that of Iphigenie en Aulide. 

In the field of opera buffa the librettos were not usually of literary 
interest. Il matrimonio segreto (1792) by Cimarosa was taken from 
a long forgotten French operetta, Sophie, ou le mariage caché, which 
was in its turn founded on Garrick and Coleman’s Clandestine 


256 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


Marriage (1766). Cimarosa also has one important opera seria, 
Gli Orazi e Curiazi, which is an adaptation of Corneille’s Horace 
(1640). 

The libretto of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (1786) is derived from 
Beaumarchais’ famous comedy of that name (1784), which con- 
stitutes the second play of his famous trilogy, the first comedy of 
which will later furnish Rossini with the libretto of his Barber of 
Seville (1815). The original French comedies had caused considerable 
political disturbances and Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, 
wisely left all political references out of his version. 

Don Giovanni (1787) has also a libretto of strong literary interest, 
composed likewise by Da Ponte, who did not hesitate to borrow 
from an opera by Gazzaniga which came out in the same year and 
which was called J/ convitato di pietra. The prototype of the opera 
is the Don Juan of Moliére’s Festin de Pierre (1665), which in turn 
is borrowed from Tirso de Molina’s Burlador de Sevilla (1630), which 
goes for its inspiration back to Cueva’s La Comedia del Infamador 
(1583), the hero of which, Leucino, is the original Don Juan. The 
subject was popular—it had been used by the Italian, Goldoni, for 
a play, and by the Englishman, Thomas Shadwell, whose Libertine 
Destroyed had been given in 1676. Le Tellier had used it for a French 
comic opera, Righini and Gazzaniga employed it for Italian operas, 
and Gluck for a ballet. 

Rossini’s first important opera was Tancred (1813). The libretto 
was by Rossi. The name would lead one to believe that the opera 
was founded on material taken from Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, 
but such is not the case. None of the characters of the opera, except 
Tancred himself, figure in Tasso’s poem at all and the action is purely 
fanciful. Elizabetta (1815) is not one of Rossini’s famous operas but 
it is interesting from a literary point of view since its story bears a 
close resemblance to Scott’s Kenilworth, although the latter is not 
definitely established as a source. 

Il barbiere di Seviglia, one of Rossini’s greatest operas, is founded 
on the first comedy of Beaumarchais’ trilogy, as mentioned above. 
Paisiello had produced in 1782 an opera using the same material and 
he now used his influence to make his young rival’s work a failure, 
although he had granted permission for the subject to be used. The 
opera of Rossini eventually triumphed over intrigue and attained 
the high popularity which it still retains. 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 257 


Rossini’s next opera, Ofello (1816), found its inspiration in 
Shakespeare’s Othello. Cenerentola (1817) is the old fairy story of 
Cinderella in a modern setting. The fairy atmosphere of Perrault’s 
version is lost. The fairy godmother’s place is taken by the prince’s 
preceptor who is disguised as a beggar, and the glass slipper is 
metamorphosed into a bracelet. Cinderella herself is a coloratura 
singer bedecked with laces and jewels. She is abused by her sisters, 
it is true, but she nevertheless holds her own. There is an interesting 
complication in the action which clearly springs from Le jeu de 
Vamour et du hasard (1730) by Marivaux. The prince does not come 
to the ladies’ house in his own clothes, but disguised in simple garb, 
while his valet plays his part. The libretto is by Ferretti. 

La gazza ladra (1817) has a libretto by Gherardi and is founded 
on a French melodrama, La pie voleuse (1815), by Caigniez and 
D’Aubigny. Armida (1817) is an adaptation of the material of 
Gluck’s opera of the same name, treated above. Mosé in Egitto 
(1818), which was later rewritten and called Moise, is in reality an 
oratorio founded on the biblical story of Joseph, but it is sometimes 
given as an opera. This subject was popular with opera composers. 
We have a Giuseppe by Caldara appearing in 1722, and Metastasio’s 
Giuseppe riconosciuto was set to music by several composers between 
1733 and 1788. Mehul’s Joseph (1807) is perhaps the most popular 
setting of the story. 

La donna del lago (1819) is founded on Sir Walter Scott’s Lady of 
the Lake, with libretto by Tottola. Semiramide (1823) has a libretto 
by Rossi which is founded on a tragedy by Voltaire, Sémiramis 
(1748). The subject had been treated in French literature before 
Voltaire by Crébillon. The story is a Babylonian version of the tale 
of the murder of Agamemnon by his wife. Rossi takes marked 
liberties with his literary original. 

Rossini’s last opera, William Tell (1829), follows fairly faithfully 
the drama of that name by Schiller. The libretto is the work of 
Jouy, Bis, and Marast. 

The first of Donizetti’s operas to be of interest to us is Torquato 
Tasso (1833). It deals with the life of the unhappy Italian poet whose 
Jerusalem Delivered was the inspiration of so many of the earlier 
operas. Lucrezia Borgia (1834) has a text by Romano founded on 
the tragedy of the same name by Victor Hugo. The latter tried, 


258 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


when the opera was given in Paris in 1840, to prevent further per- 
formances on the ground that his work had been plundered. The 
libretto was thereupon altered and rewritten and the name of the 
opera changed to La renegata. The Italian characters, who were 
chiefly nobles at the papal court of Alexander VI, were changed to 
Turks, and the performances were resumed. Later Victor Hugo 
became mollified by the payment of satisfactory royalties and the 
original libretto was restored. The text follows the original drama 
closely, and deals with the famous character in Italian history whose 
name furnishes the title, or rather with the adventures attributed 
to her by Hugo. In reality, Lucrezia Borgia was a pious, prudent, 
and highly educated woman as well as a celebrated patroness of the 
arts and of learning in general.! 

Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) has a libretto by Cammerano and 
the subject is taken from Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor. 
The text does not follow the original story closely. J/ poliuto (1832) 
has an Italian text by Nourrit and Cammerano, but the performance 
of this opera was forbidden by the police in Italy and it was adapted 
for the French stage by Scribe. The first performance was in Paris 
in 1840. The material for the text was taken from Polyeucte by 
Corneille. The French version was called Les martyrs and the opera 
appeared in London later as J martirt. 

La favorita (1840) is founded on Le Comte de Commingues, a 
French play by Baculard d’Arnaud. The original title of this play 
was Le Comte de Comminge, ou Les amants malheureux, and it was 
taken from Les mémoires du Comte de Commingues by Mme. de 
Tencin. The libretto of the opera is by Royer and Waetz. Linda di 
Chamouni (1842) has words by Rossi founded on a French melo- 
drama, La Grace de Dieu by d’Ennery and Lemoine. 

Of Bellini’s early operas up to 1831 none are given today, and 
only one interests us on account of its source. This is J Capuletiz 
ed i Montecchi (1830), which is an operatic version of Shakespeare’s 
Romeo and Juliet. The libretto, by Romani, had already served 
Bellini’s master, Zingarelli, for his opera, Romeo e Giulietta (1796). 
Two other Italian composers who used the same subject for operas 
were Nicolo Vaccai (1790-1848) and Filippo Marchetti (1835-1902). 

Bellini’s first opera of importance, La Sonnambula (1831), is 


1 Buel, James: The Great Operas, Paris and London, 1899, Vol. 5, page 425. 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 259 


adapted from a vaudeville-ballet by Scribe. Norma (1831) has a 
libretto by Romani based on a tragedy of the same name by Soumet. 
I puritani di Scozia (1835) has a weak libretto written by Count 
Pepoli. The subject is taken from a French play, Cavaliers et Tétes 
Rondes, by Jacques Ancelot (1794-1854), which play borrowed its 
material from Scott’s novel, Old Mortality. 

The first of Verdi’s operas to be of interest to us is Nabucodonosor, 
the name of which is usually shortened to Nabucco (1842). The story 
is taken from the Bible and the libretto is by Solera. 

The earliest of Verdi’s operas which has endured is Ernani (1844), 
a tragic opera in four acts with libretto by Piave. The subject matter 
followed the tragedy of Victor Hugo, Hernani (1830), very closely at 
first, but Hugo protested loudly over what he regarded as the stealing 
of his work, just as he had protested over Donizetti’s exploitation of 
his Lucréce Borgia some years before. Just as Donizetti had had to 
revise his work entirely, so now Verdi had to rewrite his Ernani. 
The words were altered, much of the music was changed to_cor- 
respond to the new libretto, the characters were changed to Italians, 
and a new title, I] proscritto, was given to the opera. It is interesting 
to note that Hugo’s complete legal success in this matter led to the 
paying of royalties by all Italian composers to the French authors 
whose works they used. 

Aside from the difficulties with Victor Hugo, Verdi had the police 
to contend with, who emphatically refused to allow the portrayal of 
a conspiracy on the stage. This was consequently omitted in the 
revised version of the opera. Other sources of trouble were the people 
themselves, who objected to the innovations introduced by Verdi 
in this opera. The outstanding objector was a Count Mocenigo who 
held forth violently against the blowing of Don Silva’s horn in the 
last act as being ‘‘disgraceful’’! Then the chorus, Sz ridesti 11 Leon 
di Castiglia, provoked a political manifestation on the part of the 
Venetians. Eventually matters quieted down and the opera became 
very popular. The subject matter lends itself admirably to operatic 
purposes, the Spanish ‘‘pundonor”’ motif being used very dramati- 
cally. It is in this opera that Verdi broke away very definitely from 
the purely melodic and technically showy operas of his predecessors 
and introduced the dramatic element, clearly and definitely. This 
was resented bitterly by the conservatives, as all innovations are 


260 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


resented, but Verdi held his own, and we have at this point the 
beginning of modern dramatic grand opera. 

The operas that Verdi wrote after the production of Ernani were 
for a time of indifferent quality. A number of them are interesting 
to us, however, on account of their literary sources. Giovanna d’ Arca 
(1845), was taken from Schiller’s tragedy, Die Jungfrau von Orleans 
(1801). Macbeth (1847) was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. 
I Masnadieri (1847) was adapted by Maffei from Die Rauber by 
Schiller and Louisa Miller (1849) had a text by Cammarano taken 
from Kabale und Liebe, which is also by Schiller. 

Rigoletto (1851) is regarded by many as Verdi’s best opera. It is 
a tragedy in three acts, the subject matter of which was taken from 
Victor Hugo’s Le roi s’amuse (1832). It followed very faithfully the 
original drama, which is best known to English readers and play- 
goers in Tom Taylor’s adaptation, The Fool’s Revenge (1859). The 
operatic libretto was by Piave and the title given to the work was 
La maledizione, in order to disguise the origin of the plot. In spite 
of all attempts to avoid trouble the police forbade the presentation 
of the opera as soon as the first performance was announced, on the 
grounds that it would not be wise to permit the representation of a 
king on the stage in the situation attributed to Francis I in the 
original tragedy, particularly after the political events of 1848. 
Verdi and the theatrical manager tried in vain to have these objec- 
tions on the part of the civil authorities removed and matters looked 
hopeless, when the Minister of Police, who was himself a great lover 
of music, suggested a way out of the difficulty. The king of the 
libretto was to be changed to a duke of Mantua and the name of the 
opera to Rigoletto, which was the name of the king’s buffoon, who 
was called Triboulet in the original drama. Verdi accepted the 
alterations, although they necessitated considerable labor on his 
part, and had the revised opera ready in forty days. The material has 
the defects of the original, which are: lack of probability, too glaring 
contrasts, and unnatural contradictions, all of which are faults in 
the Romantic conceptions of Victor Hugo. Just as in Notre Dame de 
Paris and in L’homme qui rit Hugo has created in Le roi s’amuse a 
character which is physically and morally revolting in itself but 
which is rendered sympathetic by its tender and melancholy love 
for some beautiful and touching, though unfortunate, creature. 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 261 


Il trovatore (1853) has a libretto by Cammarano which is derived 
from the romantic El trovador by the Spanish writer Antonio Garcia 
Gutierrez (1812-1884). This play is a romantic melodrama and the 
opera retains the same qualities. La Traviata (1853) is founded on 
Alexandre Dumas’ La dame aux camélias (1852), known to English 
play-goers under the incorrect title, Camille. The libretto by Piave 
followed Dumas’ text closely and also retained its modern setting 
in the first version of the opera. This displeased the audience, which 
was accustomed to costume and period settings in their operas, and 
the first performance was a failure. A year later it was repeated with 
marked changes in the libretto. The scene was changed from the 
modern Paris depicted by Dumas to Paris during the reign of Louis 
XIV. The names of some of the characters were altered and there 
were some changes in the action. This time the opera had a tre- 
mendous success and it has remained popular. 

Verdi’s next opera was I vespri siciliani (1855). The music was 
written to a French text by Scribe which had been rearranged by du 
Locle. The massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572) is the background 
of the story. The title would seem to refer to the massacre of the 
French by the Sicilians in 1282, in which the vesper bell was the 
signal for a general uprising of the population against the French 
usurpers, but such is not the case. The term “Sicilian Vespers” came 
to mean any general massacre and is here used to designate that of 
St. Bartholomew. The opera book is not taken from Les Vépres 
Siciliennes (1819) by the French author, Casimir Delavigne, which 
tragedy deals with the original massacre. 

Simon Boccanegra (1857) was taken from a Spanish play of the 
same title by the Romantic author, Garcia Gutierrez, who wrote 
the drama which furnished the inspiration for I/ trovatore. 

Il ballo in maschera (1858) had a libretto by Somma which was 
made from a libretto which Scribe had written for Rossini. The 
latter had not used it and Scribe offered it to Auber, who utilized 
it for his Gustav IIT, ou le bal masqué. Verdi’s opera also was called 
at first Gustav III. The libretto is written around the assassination 
of Gustav III of Sweden who was shot in the back at a masked ball 
in Stockholm on March 16, 1792. Just before the expected pro- 
duction of the opera, Felice Orsini, an Italian revolutionary, made his 
famous attempt to kill Napoleon III. The authorities refused to 


262 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


allow Verdi’s opera to be given because it contained a conspiracy 
scene and dealt with the assassination of a king. Verdi was com- 
manded to set different words to the music quickly, but refused. 
The manager brought suit against him for extensive damages. The 
people of Naples were keenly disappointed and a revolution almost 
broke out. Crowds gathered in the streets shouting “Viva Verdi,” 
and made a banner out of the initials of his name (viz. Vittorio 
Emmanuele RE D’Italia) to further Italia Irredenta sentiment. 
For a time the opera was laid aside, despite the demonstrations in 
its favor. Then a solution was suggested by the impresario at Rome. 
The title of the opera was to be changed to Un ballo in maschera 
and the scene was changed from Sweden to Boston, Massachusetts. 
Two conspirators were changed to negroes and a dangerous astrologer 
to a negress. Later the original setting was restored by Mario in 
Paris. 

Verdi’s next opera was La forza del destino (1862). The book is 
by Piave, who took it from a Spanish play, Don Alvaro, o la fuerza 
del sino (1835) by the Duke of Rivas. This play occupied in the 
Spanish theater a place similar to that taken in the French theater 
by Victor Hugo’s Hernani. It introduced the Romantic movement 
in all its force and was the occasion of a tremendous demonstration 
when first given. 

Don Carlos (1867) represents another attempt on the part of Verdi 
to utilize a drama of Schiller for an operatic subject. The libretto, 
which is the result of collaboration on the part of Méry and du Locle, 
follows Schiller’s Don Carlos (1787) faithfully, in fact some scenes 
are taken almost word for word from the original. The ending is 
changed somewhat, in that Schiller’s drama ends with the order of 
the king to the cardinal enjoining him to do his work, which in this 
case is the execution of the king’s son, Don Carlos, who has been 
his royal father’s rival in love. In the opera we find, subsequent to 
the king’s speech, the appearance of the ghost of Charles V, who 
wraps the infante in his mantle and disappears with him. 

The critics thought that Don Carlos was the work of an old man 
whose creative career was ended but Verdi surprised them with a 
new and very original and strong work, Aida (1871). This opera 
was written upon a commission of the Khedive of Egypt for the 
inauguration of the latter’s new Italian theater in Cairo. The subject 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 263 


matter, which was required to be native Egyptian, was taken from a 
sketch written by the director of the museum at Boulak, Mariette 
Bey, a man well versed in Egyptology. In constructing a story for 
a text for Verdi’s opera he made use of an old manuscript which he 
had discovered during his researches. The original libretto was in 
French. Later Antonio Ghislandoni translated it into Italian verse 
and it is his name which appears as that of the librettist on the title 
sheet of the opera. As a background Mariette Bey revived Egyptian 
life of the time of the Pharaohs. He rebuilt ancient Thebes, Memphis, 
and the Temple of Phtah, and designed costumes and arranged 
scenery with all the historical accuracy possible. Verdi tried also 
in his music to acquire as much local color as he could and we find 
in this work a total departure from the conventional Italian forms. 
We also find a marked tendency towards modernism. 

Otello (1887) had a libretto by Arrigo Boito founded on Shakes- 
peare’s Othello. Falstaff (1893) is founded on Shakespeare’s The 
Merry Wives of Windsor with borrowings from Henry IV. A con- 
spicuous example of the latter is the well-known monologue on 
honor. The libretto is by Boito and shows well his skill in adaptation 
and condensation. Many characters of the original comedy are 
eliminated, namely, Shallow, Slender, William, Page, Sir Hugh Evans, 
Simple and Rugby. Falstaff himself appears as the comic figure that 
Shakespeare made him, although he is known to have been a his- 
torical figure of some dignity and renown. He was a soldier who 
served in France and later became governor of Honfleur. He took 
an important part in the battle of Agincourt and was also in all the 
engagements before the walls of Orleans where the English were 
obliged to retreat before Jeanne d’Arc. His name was Sir John 
Falstaff and he died at the age of eighty-two in his native county of 
Norfolk after having spent an honored old age in looking after the 
interests of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, to the founda- 
tion of which he had contributed. He is made into a highly comical 
old wine-bibber by Shakespeare, however, and the tale of his illicit 
amours forms the nucleus of the original comedy and, consequently, 
of the operas taken from it. These have been many, but the most 
notable, after Verdi’s is The Merry Wives of Windsor (1849) by Otto 
Nicolai (1810-1849). 

Arrigo Boito (1842-1918) was a skillful writer of librettos as well 


264 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


as a composer. He has one outstanding opera, Mefistofele, for which 
he wrote the libretto himself. In this work he made use of his pro- 
found knowledge of the Faust legend in its different treatments. 
He goes deeply into Goethe’s Faust for inspiration and his is not a 
superficial treatment of one episode from that monumental work, 
as is Gounod’s Faust (1859). However, Gounod showed a better 
appreciation of the limitations of an opera, for his work is succinct, 
condensed, and unified, whereas Boito, in attempting to do too 
much for the scope of one opera, caused his work to lack these 
qualities. Boito tried to base his opera on both books of Goethe’s 
Faust, and attempted to imbue his work with the philosophical 
substratum of that entire poem. Although he was a poet of no mean 
ability, he had attempted in this a task beyond his power, and so 
the opera, which is very beautiful and one of the most profound 
works ever written for the lyric stage, is seldom heard. It is not well 
connected and consistently developed, but rather a series of episodes 
which hold together and have significance only for those who are 
already familiar with the original poem in its entirety. This work 
Boito deals with reverently, his deep understanding of it being doubt- 
less a result of his own studies in Germany. The notes which he 
appended to the score show clearly his knowledge of the subject. 
Aside from Goethe’s poem he made use of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus 
(1592), and of excerpts from Blaze de Bury, Lenau, and Widman, as 
well as from others who have treated the legend. 

Filippo Marchetti, a follower of Verdi, wrote only two operas 
of importance, Giulietta e Romeo, which was founded on Shakespeare’s 
Romeo and Juliet, and Ruy Blas, which was derived from Victor 
Hugo’s romantic drama of the same name. Another close disciple 
of Verdi was Errico Petrella, whose Jone (1858) was derived from 
The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton with 
libretto by Peruzzini. He also wrote an I promessi sposi (1869) the 
subject matter of which is taken from Manzoni’s famous novel of 
the same name. The libretto is by Ghizlandoni. 

Amilcare Ponchielli also wrote an I promessi sposi which was 
derived from the same source as the above. His most famous opera 
is La Gioconda (1876), which is taken from Victor Hugo’s gloomy 
play, Angelo, Tyran de Padoue (1835). The libretto is by Arrigo 
Boito who signed the book with his pseudonymn, Tobia Garrio, 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 265 


which is an anagram of his name. The text of the original is not 
followed closely: the scene of action is changed from Padua to 
Venice, and the heroine is changed from a rich actress to a poor 
street singer. The blind mother of the latter, who is scarcely men- 
tioned in the play, becomes a character of importance in the opera. 
The gloominess and unhealthy tone of the original are retained. 
Ponchielli has one other opera of interest, Marion Delorme (1885) 
which found its inspiration in Victor Hugo’s drama of the same 
name. 

Giacomo Puccini’s first opera of interest, Le Villi (1884) is 
founded on a legend from European folklore. Manon Lescaut (1893) 
has a libretto written by the composer himself, assisted by a com- 
mittee of friends. The material is taken from the novel of the same 
name by the Abbé Prévost (1731). The same subject had been used 
before, by Halévy, by Balfe, by Auber, and by Massenet in his 
Manon (1884). The last named was the most successful and has 
remained so to the present day. Puccini follows the original story 
more closely than Massenet, with the result that his opera is not a 
coherent drama so much as a succession of single scenes, which are 
more or less detached, and which would be very nearly incompre- 
hensible without a previous knowledge of the story. Indeed, Puccini 
did not call his work an opera but a lyric drama. 

Puccini’s La Bohéme (1896) was also founded on a novel, La 
Vie de Bohéme (1848) by Henri Murger, and, like Manon Lescaut, 
it is a series of genre pictures rather than a connected drama. The 
libretto is by Giacosa and Illica and is purely episodic in character. 
La Tosca (1900) has an exceptionally strong libretto by Giacosa and 
Illica taken from the gruesome play of the same name by Sardou. 
Madame Butterfly (1904) has a libretto by the same two men as the 
preceding operas. It is founded on a play of the same name by 
Belasco. The latter, finding himself in need of a new play to save a 
somewhat disastrous season, hastily constructed a Madame Butterfly, 
the plot of which he borrowed from the book by John Luther Long. 
Long had gotten his inspiration for the book from Mme. Chrysanthéme 
(1887), a novel by Pierre Loti. Loti once made the statement that 
his story was the page out of a real diary, and the inference would 
be that it was his own for he had a temporary native wife during his 
stay in Japan. Belasco’s play from this source was a great success. 


266 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


Puccini saw it in London and set the story to music with consummate 
skill. He followed the Belasco and Long version fairly faithfully, but 
made much of the wedding, which these two omitted entirely. The 
end of the opera and of the play is very different from that of Loti’s 
novel, the novel being more true to life, Loti leaves his Japanese 
wife clinking the dollars which he has given her, whereas Long 
introduces a tragic end to give his story a “‘soul,” as he called it.? 

The Girl of the Golden West (1910) was also taken from a play by 
Belasco which has the same title. Gianni Schicchi, Suora Angelica, 
and J/ tabarro, are three one-act plays which had their premiére 
in New York in 1918. The libretto of Gianni Schicchi is by Forzano 
and the material is taken from a mediaeval story which is mentioned 
in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Canto XXX, Inferno. The libretto of 
the second opera is by the same librettist but the literary source 
has not been established. The third, I] tabarro, or The Cloak, has 
a libretto by Giuseppe Adami based on La houplande by Didier 
Gold. 

Pietro Mascagni’s most famous opera, Cavalleria rusticana (1890), 
has a libretto by Targioni-Tozzetti Menasci after the play of the 
same name by Giovanni Verga. This play (1884) is a dramatization, 
by the author, of his short story of the same name which appeared 
in his collection of short stories called Vita dei campi (1880). Later 
this volume was republished with Cavalleria rusticana as the title. 
The dramatization of the story is a one-act play with nine scenes. 
Various alterations were made from the original; the leading feminine 
character, Santa, became Santuzza and various minor characters 
were introduced to add local color and to provide a slight comic 
relief. There is not the slightest vestige of the latter in the opera, 
however. In the opera a few lyrics are inserted and the name of 
Turiddu’s mother is changed from Nunzia to Lucia, doubtless 
because the latter name is easier to sing. 

Mascagni’s Iris (1898) has a text by Illica who went to Sar 
Pelladan and d’Annunzio for his inspiration. L’Amico Fritz (1891) 
has a text by Suardon from the novel of the same name by Erckmann- 
Chatrian. J Rantzau (1892) was taken from a novel by the same 
authors called Les deux fréres, which they themselves turned into a 
play called Les Ranizau. Guglielmo Ratcliff (1895) was founded on 


2 Krehbiel, Henry E.: A Second Book of Operas, New York, 1920, page 186. 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 267 


the gloomy Scotch story told by Heine. Zanetto (1896) is an operatic 
sketch in one act taken from the graceful idyl, Le Passant, by Coppée. 
Vistilia, a lyric drama, has a libretto based on a historical novel 
by de Zerbi. Jsabeaw (1911) has a libretto by Illica based on the 
story of Lady Godiva. Lodoletia (1917) has a text by Forzano 
modeled on Ouida’s novel, Two Little Wooden Shoes. 

Ruggiero Leoncavallo owes his success and fame to one short 
opera, Pagliacci (1892). He was accused by Catulle Mendez of 
having plagiarized in this work the latter’s La femme de Tabarin, 
which has incidental music by Chabrier. Mendez tried to institute 
proceedings to prevent the performance of the opera, although he 
himself had been accused of plagiarizing Paul Ferrier’s Tabarin in 
his own work. Leoncavallo, in a letter to his publishers, stated that 
when he was a child a jealous player had killed his wife after a per- 
formance at Montalta, and that the event had been particularly 
strongly impressed upon his mind because his father had been the 
judge at the player’s trial. Mendez accepted this explanation and 
withdrew his suit. The idea of a play within a play which we find in 
Pagliacci is old. We find it in Hamlet and also in the play Vorick’s 
Love, which was adapted by William Dean Howells from Drama 
Nuevo by Manuel Tamayo y Baus. The same device is also used in 
Paillasse by Dennery, which is known on the English stage as 
Belphegor, the Mountebank. The play used on the stage of the mimic 
theater of Pagliacci is one of the Harlequin comedies of the Italian 
commedia dell’arte. The last line of the opera text, ““La commedia 
e finita,” is Dante’s and it is said to have been almost the last speech 
of Beethoven. The idea of having a prologue was an old theatrical 
custom dating back to the Greek drama. Leoncavallo wrote the 
libretto of this opera himself. The title is Pagliacci, not I pagliacci, 
as it is often printed. It is the plural of Pagliaccio, which is the 
Italian name for a comic type of actor known to the French as 
Paillasse, on account of the suit of bed-ticking which followed the 
early suit of white with large buttons which distinguished this 
character. The word that meant straw was extended to the mattress 
containing it and then to the buffoon who wore the cloth of which the 
mattress was made. The pagliaccio is a lower order of clown than 
the pulcinello. 

Leoncavallo’s one other opera of importance, Zaza (1900), also 


268 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 


has a libretto by the composer himself which he adapted from a play 
by Simon and Berton. His remaining operas are not well known but 
are of some slight interest from a literary standpoint. Tommaso 
Chatterton (1896) is derived from Chatterton, a play by Alfred de 
Vigny. La Bohéme and La Tosca are from the same sources as 
Puccini’s famous operas of the same names. Trilby was from the 
popular novel of the same name by Du Maurier. Der Roland von 
Berlin (1904) had a libretto which had been suggested by the 
Emperor of Germany. It was written by the composer and was 
adapted from a German novel of the same name by Willibald Alexis 
(Wilhelm Haring). The theme of the opera is the glorification of 
the Hohenzollerns. 

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari brought out an operatic version of 
Cinderella, Cenerentola, in 1900. His next opera, Le donne curiose 
(1903), has a libretto by Count Luigi Sugana after the comedy of the 
same name by Carlo Goldoni. I/ segreto di Susanna (1910) was taken 
from a French farce which was turned into German by Max Kalpeck. 
The Italian translation of the libretto was by Golisciani. I gioelli 
della Madonna (1911) has a plot which the composer constructed 
himself. The versification is by Zangarini and Golisciani. L’ Amore 
medico (1913) has a text by Golisciani after Moliére’s Amour médecin. 

Luigi Mancinelli’s Ero e Leandro (1899) has a libretto which 
Boito wrote for himself but abandoned when he became engrossed 
in his Mefistofele. He first gave the book to Bottesini, who composed 
it unsuccessfully, whereupon it was turned over to Mancinelli. The 
story is taken from classical mythology. Two odes of Anacreon were 
borrowed and inserted bodily in the text, where they fit remarkably 
well into the dramatic scheme. 

Giuseppe Gallignami is not one of the great composers, but he 
has two operas which are interesting from a literary viewpoint. 
They are: Cricket on the Hearth, which is taken from the novel of 
the same name by Charles Dickens, and Atala, which is taken from 
the novel of that name by Chateaubriand. 

One opera of Alfredo Catalani merits mention, La Wally (1892). 
The book is by Illica from a German play by the Baroness von Hillern 
which is called Die Geierwally and which is a dramatization by the 
authoress of her novel of the same name, published in 1875. 

Umberto Giordano’s Mala vita has a libretto by Daspuro which 


LITERARY SOURCES OF ITALIAN OPERA 269 


is based on a play of the same name. Andrea Chénier (1896) deals 
with the last years and the death of the famous French poet of that 
name. The opera is full of French revolutionary airs. The libretto 
is by Illica. Fédora (1897) is founded on the well known play of 
that name by Victorian Sardou. Siberia (1903) is thought by many 
to have been inspired by Tolstoi’s Resurrection but the latter work 
has not been definitely established as a source. Mme. Sans-Géne 
(1915) has a libretto by Renato Simoni derived from a play of the 
same name by Sardou and Moreau, which in its turn is founded on, 
or rather developed out of a little one-act play dealing with a story 
about Napoleon, his marshal Lefebvre, and a laundress, which is 
partly historical and partly mythical. This opera, like Andréa 
Chénier, contains many revolutionary airs. 

Francesco Cilea has one opera of note, Adriana Lecouvreur (1902), 
which is founded on the drama of that name by Scribe and Legouvé 
(1849). The libretto by Colautti follows the play closely, and has 
as its heroine the famous actress of the Comédie Francaise whose 
name the work bears. 

Franco Leoni has one opera of interest, L’Oracolo (1905), which 
was adapted by the librettist, Camillo Zanoni, from the American 
play, The Cat and the Cherub (1896), by Chester Bailey Fernald. 

Edoardo Mascherone has also one opera, Lorenza (1901), the 
story of which is a Calabrian version of the biblical tale of Judith 
and Holofernes, with the variation that the heroine falls in love with 
her bandit chief and allows herself to be shot to save him. 

Italo Montemezzi has one notable opera, L’Amore dei tre re 
(1913). The text is by Sem Benelli, one of Italy’s foremost play- 
wrights, who modelled it after his own strong play of the same title. 
To do this he made some omissions and added a chorus. 

Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini (1914) is taken from 
the play of the same name by Gabriele d’Annunzio. The latter 
prepared the libretto himself. The main story of the play was derived 
from the version of the tale given by Dante in his Divine Comedy, 
Inferno, Canto V, lines 88-138. The opera was a disappointment, 
for the very great beauty of the play had led the public to expect 
something very fine. The shortcomings of the composer were obvious. 

A recent opera, Resurrection, by Franco Alfano, is founded on 
Tolstoi’s work of that name. It was written in Paris in the late 


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UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES _ 


nineties, but found success only in 1926 when played by I ps Mz ary 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY i y 
Apthorp, W. F. The Opera Past and Present. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1910 Le 
Bates, Alfred. Editor in Chief of Drama and Opera, Volumes XI and XII. Ta 
Publishing Co., London and New York, 1909. 
Boise, O. B. Music oe Its Masters. J. E. Lippincott Co. ‘Philadelphia, 1913. i. 
Brower. Story Lives of Master Musicians. Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1922. a! 
Buel, James W. The Great Operas, Volumes I, II, III, IV, V. La Société Universelle 
Lyrique, Paris and London, 1899. 
Edwards, Sutherland. History of the Opera. Wm. Allen and Co., London. 
Elson, Arthur. A History of Opera. Page and Co., Boston, 1901. 
Ford, J. D. M. Main Currents of Spanish Literature. Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1919. 
Hanslick, Eduard. Die Moderne Oper. A. Hoffman, Berlin, 1880. 
Henderson, W. J. How Music Developed. Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York, 1898. — 
———The Story of Music. Longmans Green & Co., New York, 1921. 
Kobbe, Gustav. The Complete Opera Book. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1899. 
Krehbiel, Henry Edward. Chapters of Opera. Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1910. 
————More Chapters of Opera. Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1919. 
— Book of Operas and Second Book of Operas. The MacMillanCo., New York, 1920 — 
Matthew, J. E. The Literature of Music. Elliot Stark, London. 
McSpadden, J. W. Opera Synopses. Thos. Y. Crowell, New York, 1921. 
Pratt, Waldo Selden. The History of Music. G. Schirmer, New York, 1907. 
Rous, Samuel Holland. The Victrola Book of the Opera. Victor Talking Machine Co., 
Camden, New Jersey, 1921. 
Upton, Geo. F. The Standard Operas. A. C. MacClurg & Co., Boston, 1899. 


American Encyclopedia. : 

American History and Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians, Volumes I and II of Operas _ 
and Volumes I and II of Musical Biographies. Irving Squire, New York, 1908. at 

Dictionnaire Universel, F. Larousse. a 

Encyclopedia Brittanica. 

La Grande Encyclopédie. 

Meyer’s Konversationslexikon. 

Petit Larousse Illustré, Librairie Larousse, Paris, 1922. : 

Stokes’ Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians, compiled by De Bekker. Frederick A. a 
Stokes Co., New York. 


3 Bonner, Eugene: ‘Music and Musicians,” Outlook, Vol. 148, page 226; Feb. 8, 1928. 








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but are sold at Two Dollars per volume. Address, University of Colorado Book Store, Macky 
mae sae sou, Colorado. 





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Date Due 











Form 335. 25M—7-38—S 





378,788 OV19S v.16 368963 
Colorado University 


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DATE | ISSUED TO 











378.788 G719S v.16 363963 





